Redefining HR in the minds of Employees

“I hate my boss”, “I hate going to work every morning!”, and “HR is nothing but a glorified clerk”. In the age of social media, information travels and travels fast. Open any forum, and you will find some disgruntled employees venting out their anger. At times, without inhibitions, or under the veil of confession pages! All of us who are related to organizations or business, clearly understand the reasons for this. HR is  a necessary evil, the world talks about the huge role that HR plays in the success of any organization, so it’ critical to have a dedicated HR function in order to take care of people’s needs and aspirations. But, does HR really deliver?

HR is often referred to as a dark bureaucratic force which uses one size fits all approach across the organization, treads the beaten path, and oscillates between lack of training to ‘over training’!

HR is also known as bad cop in organizations blindly enforcing nonsensical rules ranging from dress code, moral code, value code, ‘please kill me’ code  on the pretext of protecting corporate assets.

The guardians of performance are known to resist creativity and impede constructive change by expecting people to follow the ‘traditions’ and ignoring the unprecedented changes happening around the world.

Redefining HR in the minds of employees can be summed up by a commonly used phrase in business, “Building the Table”. Building the table means that HR’s role in an organization is not only to implement strategy but to help create strategy. Now, we need to understand what constitutes a strategy. It means engineering your talent to drive business performance and also enabling an organization to make a breakthrough in new business areas. It also means creating experiences, challenging existing paradigms, making rules flexible, innovating in training and development, unparalleled compensation and benefits and recreational facilities etc. This is where HR acts as a game changer.

We all love having great experiences. Witnessing a competitive game of cricket/football, water sports, a soothing drive with your favorite music, dining at a 5 star, meeting your heroes/idols, a day out with friends etc. All these are experiences which we cherish for life and want them to happen to us over and over again. Contrast this with the workplace scenario, where most of the people feel forced to come, most often even for jobs they like to do. Working in any organization is an experience of sorts, an experience which you get every day, and something that stays with you even after you leave the organization. The role of HR can be very clearly defined, create that ‘experience’ which is an Aha moment for the employees. Breakthrough innovation and creativity to align with the changing demands of business and aspirations of ‘talent’ force.

Now, what does redefining paradigms means, and how do we achieve that. How do I create that ‘experience’ for my employees? Based on the numerous surveys conducted across the world’s best workplaces like Google, Facebook, Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, IBM, National Instruments and the like, an opportunity to ‘make an impact’ through their work, is one of the biggest factors that makes employees love the workplace. Another critical factor for employees is the colleagues who they work with, people who constantly challenge, inspire them to do better and provide support when needed. Various companies have agreed that positive internal competition improves productivity and sets you up for success. Achieving both these objectives is easy, give the employees clarity on how their individual goals tie up to the bigger picture and promote team culture, an individual’s success is directly related to team success.

Redefining HR also means less self-indulgence and more flexibility. Talent needs freedom and power to thrive, and there are ways to achieve that. Participative goal setting, flexibility of location and working hours sends out a clear message that we let the employees own their work and focus on performance rather than compliance. The output is important and the employees will find creative ways to achieve that output. In 2004, Jet Blue started a revolution by allowing 700 customer care reps to work from home without a central office while Yahoo recently made news by banning work from home for all employees. “People are more productive when they are alone, but more collaborative and innovative when they are together”, says Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo. There is no utopian way that can create magic, customization is the key. HR professionals need to identify what suits their organization best, and make that happen.

Great workplaces manage talent by make creative investments in them. IBM, Infosys, Unilever, GE are companies which lead the way in enhancing competency of their talent force through training, mentoring and leadership programs. Though training is a norm in most of the organizations, but building skills in all dimensions i.e. technical, domain/functional, process/project and behavior creates differentiation. Employees like challenges and job rotation gives them a platform to solve cross functional big company issues. That is why job rotation has been regarded as one of the widely appreciated strategy of managing talent.

Compensation and Benefits, a core HR activity, can give an impetus to the business strategy. Performance linked compensation, concept of pay banding to distinguish high performers from the rest are progressive means. Various surveys across organizations have clearly indicated that money is not the top motivating factor for majority of the employees. But, benefits coupled with facilities can rejuvenate the employee experience. Dell has a unique way of making the high performers feel privileged. Every month, the best performers get to spend time in an exclusive game lounge which is not accessible to other employees.  While some other companies arrange one on one interaction with the senior management, including CEO, for the best performers. This creative rewarding mechanism not only makes the employees feel special but also gives them an opportunity to share their thoughts. Feedback, which is often called the backbone of any organization, can catapult the slow performers to the higher league.

HR has the core duty of nurturing the talent force is the old phenomenon; the new paradigm is nurturing business through people. That’s what a strategic role is, and that is how we can redefine HR in the minds of employees. “Creating the Table” is the objective, and achieving that is success!     HR is no longer a business enabler, but a business driver!

Karan Shorey