Blog — Page 44

Creating a Strategic Partnership with HR

People love to hate HR departments even more than they love to hate JR Ewing. This week we discuss why this love/hate relationship happens, and what you can do (either as a manager, or as an HR person) to address it.

Monday’s Tip: Put good people into HR. If you want high performance HR, then you need to hire, or promote high performers into HR. If you only hire adminstrators, you will only get good administration.

Tuesday’s Tip: Insist that HR have a business plan. HR needs to commit to, and be held accountable for a business plan, like any other business unit.

Wednesday’s Tip: Don’t let managers hide behind HR. All managers are responsible for managing the human aspect of their business. Manager who point the finger at HR, instead of confronting their people directly shouldn’t be managers.

Thursday’s Tip: Have a senior HR person on the senior team. If people are your most important asset, then HR needs to be represented on the senior leadership team.

Friday’s Tip: Be very clear on what HR’s deliverables are. Don’t let HR become the “catch-all” for all the jobs an organization doesn’t know where to assign. HR should have a few, important and specific deliverables to be held to account for every year.

HR as a Strategic Partner: Why HR Often Sucks

Members Click Here for Additional Tools

Get Instant Access to 200+ Cheat Sheets, Videos, and Other Immediately Usable Tools for Busy Managers – Try Out a Wily Manager Membership Today!

HR as a strategic partner is something that many people have written about, many organizations talk about, and few companies actually achieve. Below, we discuss some of the variety of reasons why HR departments fail to become a management strategic partner, but if people really are an organization’s most important asset, then this is a problem that requires attention urgently.

Why Care about HR?

Why should organizations care about having an HR strategic partner? In many cases HR is viewed a necessary evil in a company, and is simply part of the overhead cost of doing business. This is the case in poorly run companies that do not have HR as a strategic partner. There are no world-class companies with weak HR departments. Excellence requires great HR, or an HR strategic partner.

Here are some other reasons to strive create an organization that has an HR strategic partner:

Employees are expensive, and good leadership/management maximizes the value of organization’s investment in people.
Great HR has better firm performance*
- 63% less unwanted turnover
- 400% greater sales per employee
- Over 3 times greater Market Value:Book Value

*Becker, Brian E., Mark A. Huselid and Dave Ulrich, The HR Scorecard – Linking People, Strategy and Performance (Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass. 2001)

Top 10 Reasons HR Often Sucks

There are a variety of reasons that people become frustrated with their HR departments. Here are our Top 10 reasons why organizations end up without an HR Strategic Partner:

Organizations don’t know what they want/need from HR. As companies evolve and grow, the focus of HR and what management needs them to do changes. Often, there is no thought given to what are the key drivers of human performance. Being an HR strategic partner requires a clear understanding of what the HR group will do, and what they will not do.
In the absence of clear direction, HR is reduced to arranging picnics and Christmas parties. Because there is no direction from the organization, the HR group ends up becoming a “catch-all” where all the administrative jobs fall into. Once the HR group becomes overwhelmed with useless trivia, they do not have the time or talent to conduct more vital and valuable work. Being an HR strategic partner requires elevating above mere administration.
We make HR the policy-cops. There is no doubt that HR should be involved in the drafting of policy, but their role in enforcement should be that of an advisor, not an enforcer. It is the job of individual managers to enforce policy. An HR strategic partner coaches, supports and advises managers through the enforcement of policy issues.
There is no HR business plan. HR needs to have clear deliverables and measures just like any other business. The HR business plan needs roll out of the greater organizations strategic, tactical and action plans. An HR strategic partner enables the achievement of the overall business plan through superior people practice.
Managers like to use HR as a scapegoat. It’s much easier for managers to tell their people unpleasant news if they can pin it on someone else. Usually the target of such finger-pointing is either higher-level management, or the HR group. In either case it is inappropriate. Managers need to take responsibility for the leadership and management of their human assets. An HR strategic partner is a trusted advisor to getting this done well.
HR is not properly staffed. If your HR group is filled with able administrators, but not people with any real business training or experience, you will not have an HR strategic partner (although your staff picnics will probably be great).
HR reports through finance. The practice of having HR report through Finance is far too common. If you want an HR strategic partner, HR needs to report to the people responsible for executing the strategy. If HR isn’t at the senior leadership table, then it is highly hypocritical to claim that “employees are our most important asset.”
HR people do not know the core business. In order to provide quality, professional advice to managers in the core business, an HR strategic partner needs to understand that core business. It is not necessary to be expert, but there are many organizations where the HR people do not fully understand how the company operates, or how it manages and measures its success.
HR should be a place for high performers, not the company ghetto. If an organization expects outstanding performance from its HR group, it needs to staff it with outstanding people. If HR becomes the ghetto of the organization where we put people who couldn’t make it in the core business, or a place where we hire less than the best to try to meet diversity requirements, you won’t have an HR strategic partner.
HR needs to be better at selling itself, and influencing others in the organization. An HR strategic partner is an influencer more so that s/he is a decision-maker. As such HR needs to become much better at “selling” its viewpoint. Moreover, for organizations that don’t’ know how they should best use HR, it is up to the HR people to define and sell its role in the company.

What’s to be done?

If you find that your organization has an HR department that sucks for any or all of the reasons above then action needs to be taken right away. As a starter:

Have an HR business plan that is attached to the organization’s strategic plan. Without a clear focus, there is no chance of having an HR strategic partner.
Get skilled business people into HR. If you staff your HR department like an organizational ghetto, your results will match. An HR strategic partner is a highly skilled, high-potential human asset.
Get HR to the table. An HR strategic partner needs to be included in all important discussions. If HR’s not at the table when those discussions take place, there is no change of maximizing the value of the human asset, and no change of truly being a high performing organization.

Get Instant Access to 200+ Cheat Sheets, Videos, and Other Immediately Usable Tools for Busy Managers – Try Out a Wily Manager Membership Today!

Why HR Often Sucks

Bob and Jed discuss the Top 10 reasons why HR often sucks, and what you can do to begin to fix it.

Watch the ‘Why HR Often Sucks’ Video (14 mins 59 sec):

Download the ‘Why HR Often Sucks’ Video (mp4)

Download the ‘Why HR Often Sucks’ Audio (mp3)

Why HR Often Sucks Podcast Slides (.ppt)

Check out the ‘HR as a Strategic Partner: Why HR Often Sucks’ Cheat Sheet

First Day on the Job? Check Your Zipper

The first day on a new job is a harrowing experience. It creates impressions on all those you work with, and sets the stage for your success (or failure) with that employer.

Probably my most memorable first day on the job was literally my first day on the job – any job. I was fifteen years old, and I got a job bagging groceries at the local supermarket. Ron Grant was the manager on duty, and he met me at the door. Ron was never one to smile much, but he was a good guy, and he knew his job very well.

What he didn’t do as well, was to remember people’s names. From my first day onwards, my name was always “Brad” – the curse of having a last name that is many others’ first name. In the months to come, I’d hear him paging Brad time after time, and then wonder why Brad (whoever that was) never answered.

Ron toured me through the whole store, stopping along the way to introduce me to everyone on staff that we met, and to point out the things I might need to know for my new career wrapping groceries. He also doled out advice that was very useful and well intentioned, but easily could have been included in the best-seller, “Sh*t My Dad Says.” Needless to say, I learned some new words and expressions that day, that came in very handy when I recycled them back at high school.

I learned in the months and years to come, that Ron oriented me to my new workplace completely of his own initiative. The organization really had no process for bringing people on besides the requisite signing of the official paperwork.

At the end of this orientation, he returned me to the front of the store, where I’d spend the next several years bagging groceries.

“Any questions?” asked Ron.

“Nope… I’m ready to go.” I replied.

“Great”, he said, as I turned to get started. “Hey Brad,”

“Yep?”

“Your fly’s open”, he said without cracking a smile.

Presumably, he’d noticed this before he’d toured me through the whole place, but had waited until now to share this news with me. It’s been a while since I’ve been teenage boy, but I’m assuming at the time I would have had checklist of basic hygiene items – such as making sure one’s zipper was properly secured. Apparently, first day job jitters successfully eclipsed basic personal maintenance items.

Walking around in a public place with your fly open — I suppose that’s one way to make a first impression on when starting a new job.

New Management Job? Here’s How to Hit the Ground Running

Most new managers fail within the first 18 months. Here’s how to ensure your success in a new management job.

Listen to the ‘Wily Manager Fast Start’ podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

Introduction to Fast Start Podcast Slides

Find out more about Wily Manager’s Fast Start program for new or transitioning managers.

How to Hit The Ground Running in a New Managment Job

Some organizations spend days and weeks bringing new people on board, other companies leave you to fend for yourself. Whether you are starting a new role, or you are a supervisor bringing new people on, you need to have some process for onboarding new people.

The Centre for Creative Leadership conducted a study that concluded that 40% of new leaders fail within their first 18 months on the job. Don’t let yourself, or those you bring into the organization become one of these statistics.

This week we talk about how to survive and thrive your first 90 days in a new role.

Monday’s Tip: Don’t wait for HR. Unless you work for one of those few great organizations that do a good job of onboarding, it’s up to you. This is true whether you are starting new yourself, or if you are a boss bringing someone new on board.

Tuesday’s Tip: Do Your Research. You need to gather as much intelligence about the organization and the people you will be working with as you can. You need to start this process in advance of your first day.

Wednesday’s Tip: Listen To People. Once you’ve started, you need to request meetings with all of your key stakeholders to understand what their expectations are of you, and to make your first impression towards managing those expectations.

Thursday’s Tip: Win People Over. It is important that you work to win over your most important stakeholders. Look for a way to make a positive first impression as early as possible on a new job or assignment.

Friday’s Tip: Build a Plan. There are many things to keep track of when starting a new position. Take some time to craft a plan as to the things you want to accomplish in the first three months on the job. The plan can change as you learn more, but you still should start out with a plan.

Meeting Survival Guide

I know it may be hard to believe (because I seem so delightful in these pages), but I can sometimes be difficult to get along with. I get particularly cranky when I’m working with a group that loves to have meetings. They have no idea why they have meetings, there are no outcomes, and no decisions are made, so it must be that there is some addictive quality in the coffee served at meetings.

Humourist Dave Barry once said that organizations have meetings because they are unable to masterbate. I prefer to look at it this way: there is an inverse correlation between the number and quality of meetings in an organization, and their overall success. In other words, I am suggesting that the fewer meetings that occur, the more successful the organization will be.

I know this is an argument I will lose in most companies, so as a service to Wily Manager readers, I’ll suggest ways to pass the time in one of your infinite number of meetings:

Buzzword Bingo – this is where you try to stay awake by identifying business catch phrases. You need to be discrete, though. You don’t want to carry in a BINGO marker, or jump out of your chair, screaming “BINGO” when the Director of IT utters the words “low-hanging fruit”. Download the Wily Manager Buzzword Bingo card here.
Meeting value calculator – it’s kind of like a telethon, where you keep adding up the total amount of shareholder value that is being sucked away. You can run the calculations privately, or put up a display board with changeable numbers that can be updated as the meeting goes on. It’s a bit like the national debt clock in Times Square.
Count the Meetings. Often you may be in a room and witnessing 12 individual meetings happening in rapid succession, as each person updates the boss with information that is completely irrelevant to everyone else in the room.
Count the Meetings (variation). In particularly undisciplined organizations, meetings will degenerate into multiple and simultaneous conversations. In this case there can be several separate meetings occurring at once, but they are much harder to count that the first variation of this game.
Spot the Participant Type: In this game, you tag each participant with the label most appropriate to them. Here are some thought starters:
- The Jeopardy game show contestant: this is a person constantly asking rhetorical questions, and communicates through Socratic code: “Do I like the idea of being in this meeting room for 8 hours? No, I don’t”
- Caffeine-Deprived: Spot the people in the room struggling just to maintain a minimum level of consciousness, so as not to appear asleep. Often identified by periodic head-bobbing, however the really good ones have perfected sleeping with the eyes open, while nodding every few moments to give the illusion of awareness
- The Rambler – A solution to this problem is like Book III of Gulliver’s Travels where an empty sheep’s bladder tied to stick is used to gently hit the Rambler in the head to keep him on track.
- The Evangelist – everything is a matter of life or death. If the colour of the toilet-paper is changed, it will negatively impact our very way of life.
- The thinker – they doodle, don’t look they’re paying attention, and then once per meeting the amaze everyone with their ability to put the entire issue into context. Be nice to them, they could be your next boss.

Finally, it seems that meetings and death are closely related. Even before Patrick Lencioni wrote Death By Meeting, I had a dream that I had died, and arrived in purgatory, and it was a meeting that never ended. I was desperate that someone would pray for my soul, until I realized all of them were too busy in meetings as well. I woke up realizing a violent death wasn’t as bad as it sounded – at least after a grizzly death, someone would pray for me.

Conducting Effective Meetings

A recent survey of managers determined that they spend upwards of 18 hours per week in meetings and about half that time is wasted. It might be time to do something about this before your organization implodes, and we have to have another meeting to discuss the damage. Join us this week as we tackle improving our meetings.

Monday’s Tip: Question what would happen if the meeting didn’t occur at all. If there are no decisions made, or nothing changes as a result of the meeting – cancel it.

Tuesday’s Tip: Take initiative to change – whether it’s your meeting or not. Anyone can raise questions as to meeting process or meeting effectiveness. Don’t wait for someone else to step-up, raise your concerns now.

Wednesday’s Tip: Insist on an agenda in advance. A meeting without an agenda is almost certainly a waste of time and money. You are being paid to use time and money wisely. Don’t attend meetings without agendas.

Thursday’s Tip: Document action-items and decisions. Commitments and decisions must be documented with an accountable person(s), and a completion date. This list should be reviewed at the next meeting, and status against progress reported.

Friday’s Tip: Agree on a meeting process. There should be specific norms and routines that become your effective meeting process. You do not want to “wing-it”.

Good Interviews Start With Semi-Intelligent Questions

“Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses”

If that is the opening line at an employment interview, you may want to run away so fast that there is a “you-shaped” hole in the door. If you hear those words come out of your own mouth as a hiring manager, you need to do some work to up your game for this important managerial function.

Let’s examine why this is a useless question that shows a startling lack of imagination:

First of all, this is a question that invites insincere answers. You might as well ask, “could you dust off some lies and embellishments, and trot them out now?”

Second, you are not really testing the validity of the match between the competencies required for a position, and the profile of a candidate. Your questions need to be far more specific than this.

Third, this question invites the most rehearsed, least spontaneous answers. It is possible as the hiring manager, you hear something in the syndicated response that you can follow up on, but that would be pure good luck.

I know that many managers and recruiters will disagree with my viewpoint on this, so to encourage you to abandon this useless question, here are some typical responses, and the literal translation. You can cut and paste these ones into your interview notes, and spare the candidate the pain of the question:

What are your strengths?

I’m a hard worker. I don’t have any other interests or hobbies, and like to spend upwards to 80 hours a week at the office.
I’m a people person. I really like people, and even the few I don’t like I will treat with mock civility.
I’m detail oriented. I’d much rather lose myself in a spreadsheet than deal with people.

What are your weaknesses?

I’m a perfectionist. Not only am I perfect, but I demand the same of everyone around me. I’m a delight at the water-cooler.
I’m impatient. If my paycheque is an hour late, I will launch a class-action suit on behalf of everyone who works here.
I work too hard. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing, so I’ll compensate by being in the office at 6am, and not leave until 9pm. I’ll probably be on stress leave before the end of my first month.

In an interview, either as the hiring manager, or the candidate, you want some indication that the person you are dealing with is semi-intelligent. You also hope that you are portraying yourself similarly. Otherwise, you might as well audition for a reality-based TV show with the other mentally impaired contestants.

I had trouble choosing just one video clip this week, so I gave up, and embedded both of them.

How to Conduct a Good Interview

One of the most important functions of a manager is to recruit good people into her department. We have lots of material on effective recruiting, but the interview process is so critical to a positive outcome, that we thought we’d focus specifically on that this week. Often managers are thrown into interviews without much training or support, or perhaps their training happened a long time ago. In either case, join us this week, as we discuss how to conduct an effective job interview.

Monday’s Tip: Take the time to do interviews well. Getting the right people on board is likely your most important function as a manager. Good interviews take time to prepare for and follow up after. Make sure you allocate the appropriate amount of time.

Tuesday’s Tip: Have a process for the interview and follow it. You can’t improvise your way through an interview. Understand the process in advance, and stick to it once you’ve begun interviewing.

Wednesday’s Tip: Know what questions can get you into trouble. Employment laws vary by jurisdiction, so make sure you know what you can legally ask, and what you can’t.

Thursday’s Tip: Know what you’re interviewing for. Unfortunately, you can’t just hire the person you like the most. Know what competencies, experience and attitudes would best match the vacancy you are trying to fill.

Friday’s Tip: Have an objective scoring system. There is nothing wrong with using your intuition in the interviewing process, but if it is the only tool you use, you won’t be successful.