How To Do HR Right
Five ways to work well.
Stupid HR Tricks
Can your highly trained human-resources professional do this? Or has he already?
The Once & Future Consultant
In 2002, Dave Ulrich left his consulting firm to run a Mormon mission. Now he's heading back to business with some fresh ideas.
Putting the Human into Human Resources
Here's what Dave Ulrich learned working with both CEOs and fresh-faced young missionaries.
Well, here's a rockin' party: a gathering of several hundred midlevel human-resources executives in Las Vegas. (Yo, Wayne Newton! How's the 401(k)?) They are here, ensconced for two days at faux-glam Caesars Palace, to confer on "strategic HR leadership," a conceit that sounds, to the lay observer, at once frightening and self-contradictory. If not plain laughable.
Because let's face it: After close to 20 years of hopeful rhetoric about becoming "strategic partners" with a "seat at the table" where the business decisions that matter are made, most human-resources professionals aren't nearly there. They have no seat, and the table is locked inside a conference room to which they have no key. HR people are, for most practical purposes, neither strategic nor leaders.
I don't care for Las Vegas. And if it's not clear already, I don't like HR, either, which is why I'm here. The human-resources trade long ago proved itself, at best, a necessary evil -- and at worst, a dark bureaucratic force that blindly enforces nonsensical rules, resists creativity, and impedes constructive change. HR is the corporate function with the greatest potential -- the key driver, in theory, of business performance -- and also the one that most consistently underdelivers. And I am here to find out why.
Why are annual performance appraisals so time-consuming -- and so routinely useless? Why is HR so often a henchman for the chief financial officer, finding ever-more ingenious ways to cut benefits and hack at payroll? Why do its communications -- when we can understand them at all -- so often flout reality? Why are so many people processes duplicative and wasteful, creating a forest of paperwork for every minor transaction? And why does HR insist on sameness as a proxy for equity?
It's no wonder that we hate HR. In a 2005 survey by consultancy Hay Group, just 40% of employees commended their companies for retaining high-quality workers. Just 41% agreed that performance evaluations were fair. Only 58% rated their job training as favorable. Most said they had few opportunities for advancement -- and that they didn't know, in any case, what was required to move up. Most telling, only about half of workers below the manager level believed their companies took a genuine interest in their well-being.
None of this is explained immediately in Vegas. These HR folks, from employers across the nation, are neither evil courtiers nor thoughtless automatons. They are mostly smart, engaging people who seem genuinely interested in doing their jobs better. They speak convincingly about employee development and cultural transformation. And, over drinks, they spin some pretty funny yarns of employee weirdness. (Like the one about the guy who threatened to sue his wife's company for "enabling" her affair with a coworker. Then there was the mentally disabled worker and the hooker -- well, no, never mind. . . .)
But then the facade cracks. It happens at an afternoon presentation called "From Technicians to Consultants: How to Transform Your HR Staff into Strategic Business Partners." The speaker, Julie Muckler, is senior vice president of human resources at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. She is an enthusiastic woman with a broad smile and 20 years of experience at companies such as Johnson & Johnson and General Tire. She has degrees in consumer economics and human resources and organizational development.
And I have no idea what she's talking about. There is mention of "internal action learning" and "being more planful in my approach." PowerPoint slides outline Wells Fargo Home Mortgage's initiatives in performance management, organization design, and horizontal-solutions teams. Muckler describes leveraging internal resources and involving external resources -- and she leaves her audience dazed. That evening, even the human-resources pros confide they didn't understand much of it, either.
This, friends, is the trouble with HR. In a knowledge economy, companies that have the best talent win. We all know that. Human resources execs should be making the most of our, well, human resources -- finding the best hires, nurturing the stars, fostering a productive work environment -- just as IT runs the computers and finance minds the capital. HR should be joined to business strategy at the hip.
Instead, most HR organizations have ghettoized themselves literally to the brink of obsolescence. They are competent at the administrivia of pay, benefits, and retirement, but companies increasingly are farming those functions out to contractors who can handle such routine tasks at lower expense. What's left is the more important strategic role of raising the reputational and intellectual capital of the company -- but HR is, it turns out, uniquely unsuited for that.
Here's why.
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Recent Comments | 10 Total
March 20, 2008 at 4:56pm by Omar Mora
This is an excellent article, specially if you believe that variability an value added can be incorporated into HR´s way-of-working.
May 15, 2008 at 8:17am by CJ Coolidge
For 20 years, I have researched this problem. I have discovered that most of the thinking about these issues comes from the ivory towers of think tanks and universities, and has not yet connected to the streets, where the rubber meets the road.
The biggest problem is that the historical HR groups don't know how to connect with the business groups.
My new book, The Squaredime Letters, to be released this summer, will provide some real guidance for business and HR groups alike. The good news is that making this connection will make a real difference in the productivity and profitability for everyone.
CJ Coolidge
streetpaver@gmail.com
http://cj-coolidge-people-profit-x-factor.blogspot.com/
May 21, 2008 at 11:53pm by Steve Jenkins
When Lee Iaccoca wrote his tome many years ago, he said the two biggest threats to American industry were the quota system and unions. I believe there is a 3rd threat--the incompetence of hr.
Steve
June 5, 2008 at 8:07pm by Candice Gottlieb
This article addresses an unfortunate situation – HR is mired in the law and governmental regulations. Instead of focusing on strategic readiness – the typical HR administrator maintains mediocrity and hampers the growth of the business. In my experience as an organizational and conflict management consultant it’s an oppressive situation as HR executives (and it does come from the top) are threatened by change. Rather than allow new ideas from the inside, or bringing in the expertise of a specialist on the outside, they attempt to be the one-man-band. It is likely related to their uncertain future as their services become outsourced or obsolete – but becoming a part of the process, and an agent of change and growth, is the only way they can offer real value to the organization they serve.
C. Gottlieb
President, Mediating Solutions
http://MediatingSolutions.com
June 6, 2008 at 11:31am by Dave Livingston
An excellent, thorough and deep survey of the strategic status of HR. I've been as guilty as the next in neglecting its' importance though having grown up at Fedex where People were central to the company's strategy. But most of these diagnosis resonate with all my experience and reinforce it. So the real question, given the demonstrated important of good people and therefore good people policy to long-term success, is to make sure HR is part of the solution..and not the problem. I'd suggest that what we need to do is change our views of HR as a cost to be suppressed and focus instead on the impact of its' performance on enterprise performance. Building off of some of Bob Sutton's thinking (his blog and the no-Axxhole Rule) I took a pass at the link and re-thinking things just a bit with a blog post. Feel free to read and react...encouraged even. The post (the last of several which build up) is here: http://tinyurl.com/2xqwtg When you think about it it is ironic that good HR strategy and implementation is one of the bigger black holes just waiting for someone to exploit IMHO.
June 9, 2008 at 10:59am by RC R
It is curious that we hate HR with such a remarkable consistency, yet in the same breath, support today's politicians who want to expand *federal* HR into every corner of our daily lives. I'm also still waiting for just one politician to acknowledge we live in a knowledge economy (vs a manufacturing one)...but since there are no knowledge unions, I doubt that'll happen. :-)
June 16, 2008 at 9:19pm by Jay Tatum
The problem, I think, is the conclusion of the logic - that we are in a knowledge economy - seemingly void of other human capital assets. While I agree that the companies with the best talent generally win, I don't necessarily conclude it is because that have a knowledge-based workforce. That's an assumption. Those companies with the best talent may be winning because they do exactly what you are suggesting they should do - finding, nurturing, and developing talent. And wouldn't it be surprising to learn that it is their HR Departments behind all that talent?
The post makes for great responses but the logic employed here suggests a real disappointment with HR Departments that don't do what is suggested - finding, nurturing, and developing talent. And while I've worked for companies that have been on both sides of the equation, those that do take the time to invest in their employees usually have a leader at the top that not only encourages this but demands it. While it is easy to project our mutual disappointments on what HR doesn't do or isn't doing, unless and until their is unanomous buy-in and investment on the part of the CEO and Board, mediocrity reigns.
I don't know all there is to know about Human Resources but a know a great deal about Human Relations. This is a leadership issue that never goes away.
July 26, 2008 at 5:20am by John Montgomery Rouse
Some valid points here - but don't undervalue HR - Strategic HR is not transactional, it is about being a real business driver. Here the key is education, the best companies worldwide, for example Deloitte, Maersk, and Abbotts, all place a huge value on continuing education: what keeps people growing is giving them what they need to be successful, and more importantly to make the business successful.
Business is a human activity, HR is becoming more and more focused on being a driver to business results. I find your viewpoint valid, but it just ain't right. You are ignoring the very point of where HR is going and why so many Y Generation graduates are interested in a career in psychology and HR - I firmly believe HR is an intergral part of the success of the company - when it is used with genuine hard strategic thinking.
Bad HR, like bad finances, poison companies. Great HR, like great financial skills, can add immensely to top line (Less burnout, more retention so less recruitment, induction, and succession costs) and to the bottom line (Nurturing talent DOES drive business results).
HR needs to convince the board that strategic HR is the key to people's earning potential and then the door will spring open...
September 19, 2008 at 5:02pm by Work Buzz
What a great explanation of the disconnect between HR and the companies they serve. It now seems to intuitive that HR should be savvy about business....but it never occurred to me before.
Buzz
www.theworkbuzz.com
November 16, 2008 at 12:43pm by Nataliya Tyaglo
This article brings attention to an important gap. But the negativity and these kinds of generalizations about the field and about HR professionals are also contributing to the widening of the gap and lack of change. In my senior year in college, in one of my business classes my professor stated to our entire class something along the lines of: "if you want to grow in business do not get into HR; you'll get stuck in HR." So after I graduated, just like the majority of graduates that this article points to, HR was not even on my list of field to explore. But as explored my interests in respect to my values and goals, I found HR to be a key field for my professional growth. The one think that I realized, and this article confirms, is there is a difference between what HR is and what people think HR that it is. For me, HR is about Performance: both the individual performance of the people and the total performance of the organization. Everything else are just tools and resources that either make or break the way to successful performance.