HR, Are You Lonely or Do You Have Problems to Solve?
HR doesn't need a support group. They need practical solution!
The way people are trying to help HR professionals is ridiculous. “I am building an HR community where we can discuss bla bla bla….” “I have created a specific burnout coaching program for HR bla bla bla….” Stop making money out of HR’s misery!
Stress and burnout at work comes from:
Not having the competence for the problems you are trying to solve
You have the competence but the workload is overwhelming
You have the competence and the workload is manageable but the environment is not quite what it should be hence you cannot do your job or the working atmosphere is negative
So, if we want to help HR professionals we need to solve those problems and not create an AA-type of community where we can all sit around and talk about our challenges and get a notebook and a coffee mug as a participation present. Give me a break now! Who has the time for this? Working people are busy people; if you want to help them you must help them do their job better. That’s what they need not another community or coaching program. Spend all that time with your employees that will be more useful.
But HR isn’t helping themselves either. It’s like common sense has left the room.
I was at an HR conference with 200 HR professionals and saw the epitome of "groupthink" or lack of common sense. I still can't decide. There were 200 people, having the same problems, BUT asking each other how to solve the problem they all have. I was looking at these senior HR professionals thinking, am I wrong to think that if I had the same problem as them I would not be asking them for solutions? I would be asking people who don't have the same problem as I do.
I also wondered if HR is lonely. Do they just want to gather and chitchat, or do they actually want to solve their problems? If the latter, they are in the wrong room.
Here is the thing, HR is run everywhere pretty much the same way. Same policies, processes, practices, performance management systems etc. Why? HR was taught that these processes should work because they are logical solutions to HR's problems. Also, the herd mentality gives us comfort and someone to blame when things don't work out. Following others is easy and comfortable. So we have implemented everything we have been told and we have also collectively ended up with the same problems. Bravo! So what do we do?
First of all, HR must understand that those processes do make sense in theory. I can fight for each of them but then humans come into the picture and the logic in those processes is gone. What works on paper most of the time doesn't work in real life and we are dealing with real life. If it doesn't work we must change it. How do we know that they don't work?
Apparently it is because when I was at the conference I asked HR "Okay, so all these frameworks and solutions, but, tell me about your employees' experiences today! How do they feel about.......?" They looked at me not even understanding where I was coming from. Look inside not outside. Watch the video.
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As an HR in charge, you should be looking outside to see what are the new tools, interventions, etc. But, you must always start with your workforce. What you want to do is design their experiences based on their and your organisation's unique needs and when you do that, you realise that what HR guru Sheila from another company says or does wouldn't work for you. The game is not to have every corporate buzzword incorporated somewhere into your organisation.
The aim is to look at your unique situation and decide what your workforce and organisation need. Your needs and strategy should identify your tool/intervention and not the other way around. HR must move away from adopting and continuing with practices especially if the workforce doesn't take them seriously. If your PIPs, reference checks, exit interviews, annual appraisals and other processes are not taken seriously by the users and are just something "that we complete for HR", does it make sense that you burden your workforce with them? Can you get rid of them? Can you change them? Are there alternatives? You must ask those questions.
When you deliberately design employee experiences you start with that. You audit all your processes and check how your employees feel about them, and then you do the creative work of designing solutions that are suitable for you instead of adopting practices that put everyone in the same poor situation. When logical solutions fail us, it is time to think differently and maybe do something that is illogical but works.
Just because others have lost their common sense it doesn't mean that you have to.
Another massive mistake is that HR is always after the next shiny tool, the latest trend or some funky program whilst they don’t have the foundation. Each time I look at an HR department they lack the basics, of course, they are burned out and miserable!
Here’s a reminder for everyone:
- Every successful business or person focuses on the foundation/basics, not shiny things or the latest trends.
- No foundation = no success.
- Standards are the foundation of consistency, quality, results, and culture. No standards = you get none of these.
- You’ve implemented every shiny tool, the latest trends, and the best employee experience or engagement surveys out there, but the situation hasn’t changed.
Why?
Your surveys tell you that you’re missing the foundation, but you cannot see what's missing because you don't have it all mapped out. It's like cooking without a recipe: You know it doesn't taste as it should, but you don't know what's missing. You wouldn't start guessing, would you? You would get the recipe so why are you guessing in HR?
Standards provide a shared understanding of how things should be done to be effective and help set clear, measurable HR goals.
It's time to get back to basics and common sense because, without them, the latest HR gadget or guru's advice will be just another wasted dollar.
Check out how we help HR. No, not with chitchat, nobody has the time for that: https://www.thestrengthscompany.com/
