All roles in a service industry or support function are difficult. Why? Because these roles require a balance between the core responsibilities, pushing the standards forward to enable organizational growth and making the client “happy.”

Human Resources is one of these support functions, which has been branded and re-branded time after time, similar to IT, Finance, and Marketing. When you think about what a Human Resources department does in an organization, I’d encourage you to keep in mind the activities may look different depending on the organization and the maturity of the function.

Therefore, perhaps the question should be: What should HR and HRBP be doing in an organization at minimum?

Let’s start with the concept. Human Resources, as a concept, in simplest terms, refers to any organization’s most key asset: people. The term was developed in 1910s/20s, though it was used by economist John Commons in his 1893 book, Distribution of Wealth.

HR Management as a function, on the other hand, refers to an organization’s capability, designated to maximize employee and organizational performance. HR management has been traditionally most concerned with organizational processes and systems. The concept is a byproduct of the HR movement, led by Hawthorne studies in the 1930s, and grown into a study during the Industrial Revolution by studying the productivity of employees.

The function started out as an administrative function – focusing on payroll, benefits, administration, and time tracking – and evolved into a more ‘strategic’ place over time.

Though there continue to be diverse opinions about what may be the core responsibilities of HR (especially for the future), the commonly accepted core responsibilities include:

• job design and analysis
• workforce planning
• recruitment and selection
• training and development
• performance management
• compensation (remuneration)
• legal issues

In a 1998 HBR article, Dave Ulrich of University of Michigan bucketed HR responsibilities into four main areas:

• Business partner
• Administration expert
• Employee champion
• Change agent

In our ‘Future Role of HR’ video, we expanded HR responsibilities into five areas:

1. Be a strategy partner – having business acumen and, at the same time, understanding our area well enough to contribute building a realistic, executable, and sustainable business strategy.
2. Provide subject matter expertise – making sure there is enough and credible ‘know-how’ in the system to help interpret organizational and human implications of short- and long-term strategies.
3. Manage operational excellence – providing seamless administrative and tactical process experience for everyone in the organization, from CEO to operator.
4. Keep balance – keeping a good balance of view, agenda, and support structure between employees, management, and organization as a whole.
5. Monitor health and progress – working with data to understand an organization’s current state, what its employees and managers desire, and where it wants to head in the future, plus behavioral trends and cultural tendencies.

And for newcomers to the HR and management world, we are launching a new video series on Human Resources Management 101. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay up-to-speed with new content.

Everyone wants HR to be more ‘strategic’. Everyone thinks HR needs to think outside the box. Everyone calls for HR innovation and data-focus. Are we ready to agree the future of Human Resources is the topic of our focus? ☺

We have already published several posts on HR Strategy:

• HRM Intro for Managers
• Defining Human Resources Management
• Top HR Management Schools around the Globe
• Should HR Professionals be trained in HR
• Future role of HR
• Operational Excellence: What does it look like for new age HR
• TAD Showcase
• Here’s a ‘TAD’ more than you expected today
• Seriously, are HR Metrics really ‘all that?’
• To strategy, or not to strategy? That is the question.
• Should we really ”split”HR? continued
• Should we really ”split” HR?
• Why clients say only good things about your HR Business Partner?

We continue to get questions from HR colleagues regarding strategy and steps to take to develop a HR strategy for their team, business unit, or function.

First of all, it is important to realize many companies and business leaders, too, struggle with strategic thinking and strategy execution.

In 2011, Forbes published an article on 10 Reasons Why Strategic Plans Fail. Ever since, the conversation has yet to find a resolution. More recently, I read another great article on why companies fail at strategic execution at INSEAD blog.

Harvard published in 2010 that only ~38% of organizations consider themselves successful at defining their company strategy (from a planning perspective). What’s more curious is that out of that percentage, only ~48% report being good at strategy execution.1

In one Fortune 100 technology firm, years back, we designed and introduced a business planning process that allows for the key stakeholder groups – whether it’s the business leadership teams or employees or customers – to declare their needs, wants, and wishes. These then funnel up to a set of large, medium, and small size initiatives to be supported by the HR department appropriately. Would it surprise you to hear the process is still intact with the company 10 years later? It should not be – good strategy sticks! BUT… it is important to recognize the importance of execution and sustainability.

See? Strategy is different than strategy execution! Strategy is about defining where you’d like to go – it is the ‘what’ of the achievement or outcomes we wish to have. Strategy execution, however, is about the process of reaching your end goal – it is the ‘how’ of the achievement or outcome we look to have. Yet, in another wonderful research summary this year, Why Strategy Execution Unravels and What To Do About It, Donald Sull of MIT Sloan School of Management discussed four reasons leading to failure in strategy execution.

We share these data points to demonstrate thinking strategically and acting on strategy is a struggle for all business functions – not just HR. Having said that, with the evolution of our functional role, there is a hunger, a desire to do more in the strategy arena and to refocus people activities to support the business agenda.

For this, we created a Building a HR Strategy Toolkit for our colleagues. Please feel free to download, use, and share it with others as you see fit.

We are continuing to share new videos on our Human Resources Management (HRM) 101 series. Today, we share an orientation video with people managers. What is your role as a people manager in HRM? We want to help you position yourself so as we share new videos on different functions, you can continue to gauge for your active involvement, role and responsibility in HR activities. Please, let us know what you think and if there are any questions you’d want us to specifically cover, feel free to leave a comment under the video. Thank you!

It is interesting to see how our definition of a ‘healthy workplace’ has evolved over the years. Early on, we used to think of workplace health as physical safety. We wanted to ensure there were minimal accidents and that people were protected from any unseen injuries. We wanted to minimize damage and maximize reputation control.

Over time, we started thinking about physical environment as more than safety. We started paying attention to physical design elements such as lighting, sound, color, and art. Upon endorsement from regulatory bodies, we started considering ergonomics – comfortable work clothes, adjustable chairs, desks, etc. – while still focusing primarily on the physicality of the workplace.

Then came a time when we realized there is a personal element to ‘health’ in the workplace. Universities started studying health practices of individuals to learn how life practices led to dissatisfaction of employees in the workplace. This led to an opportunity for the beginning of wellness communities.

Yale University introduced a corporate behavioral change program called “4Ps to change,” focusing on possibilities, person, persuasion, and process, for example. One of the uses of this model regarded nutrition and wellness at work (see chart below). Remember all those fruit baskets showing up at your workplace kitchen, that’s where the idea came from… That was the time many for-profit and non-profit organizations started encouraging us to make healthier choices in life – from the food we eat, to the hours we sleep, to the interactions we have, and so on.

Today, there is more and more emphasis on psychological safety.

In her Harvard Business School study of 2002, Amy C. Edmondson describes psychological safety as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking,” which has been broadly accepted.

We define it as ‘people having a voice to productivity and value at all times.’ It means people can be who they are, ask questions, challenge assumptions, demand change within reason, and drive creativity and innovation without being retaliated against in return.

If you are a first time manager or unfamiliar with the concept of psychological safety, here is a good tool you can use via Google re:Work.

Needless to say, the wonderful consequences of having employees experience psychological safety in the work place include such benefits as: an increase in innovative thinking, an improvement in culture and organizational health, and a boost in employee engagement.

So, I guess we are here to say our collective definition of a ‘healthy workplace’ has continued to evolve. Perhaps the definition of ‘healthy workplace’ is a composition of three factors:

1. Physical Environment
2. Psychosocial Environment
3. Health Practices/Individual Style

In our Healthy Workplace Guide, we explain more about these three factors and provide tips for managers and HR professionals. Please make sure to check it out.

One of our readers asked about how to think of ‘scoping’ and ‘scaling’ for planning change.

This is our attempt to provide a short answer. We will put together an actual toolkit to help others. Stay tuned!

The critical element of designing change (for all purposes) is leveraging systems thinking.

Systems thinking refers to the way we consider and study dynamics between many kinds of systems.

In a society study, for example, we would consider individuals, society, sub-groups, economics, literacy rates, businesses, culture, etc.

In an organizational study, it is the same. We typically would consider systems consisting of people, structures, and processes that operate together to make an organization.

In doing so, we are looking to observe habits, tools, concepts, language, processes, systems, etc. in an organization to map the dynamism of our interdependent structures. This way, we put ourselves in a better position to consider those elements when building requirements for a change project – they often help us identify leverage points that may lead to our desired outcomes.

How do we do it? Well, there are several theoretical models to systems thinking, though I must say there is no such thing as a complete theory as there is no one good solution to any organizational problem.

What we can say is it is a dynamic and it is different than event-oriented thinking, meaning there are less causal chains of events to get to the root cause of an organizational problem. We tend to focus on the forces generated by feedback loops to find out systemic behaviors that may be nourishing organizational issues.

‘Change’ refers to a process of becoming different. It can also refer to turning one thing into something different, or even replacing, transferring, or evolving it.

The emotion of change is the biggest catalyst to change itself. Not knowledge, or the ‘what’ of the change. And not the content, or the ‘how’ of the change. It’s the emotion – the ‘why’ of the change.

In our consulting work, one of the most frequently asked questions we hear from prospects is, “Is it possible to reinvent an organization – to a new model of productivity, fulfillment, meaning, and joy?”

“The most common way people give up power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
Alice Walker

It absolutely is.

To invite and manage change effectively into an organization, however, requires a comprehensive understanding of human development and organizational psychology.

Have you ever been in a situation where a new policy or program was rolled out from senior management, or from a group at your workplace, and the implementation was a D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R? Do you remember thinking to yourself, Oh my God, I could do better than that? ☺ Trust me, we have all been there…

In his book, Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes so eloquently how humanity has evolved from the earliest forms of human consciousness into the complex consciousness of modern times. He explains how humanity evolves in stages and how there is an ongoing evolvement, a growth that defines our values and paradigms we work under.

Organizations are no different. When we think of changing a process in an organization, let alone the organization itself, we need to think of a continuum. The level of consciousness an organization goes through from the initial introduction of a ‘change’ to consumption of that ‘change’ is a timeline. That timeline will differ, depending on a set of variables, but for any mid-to-large size change in an organization we would be looking at about 1 to 3 years of evolvement. That doesn’t mean operations have to stop and everyone focuses on the change during that period of time. No, the show must go on! The organization needs to run.

It does mean, however, that the change needs to be planned, scoped, scaled, and maintained right next to day-to-day priorities to complement one another, not hinder. And you will undoubtedly start seeing positive impacts of the change in those first three months.

It is exactly this need for evolution – yet the lack of time required to plan, scope, scale, and maintain change – which leads us to ‘fail’ at managing the change.

Many leaders, project managers, and subject matter experts are blinded by their wish to make things right quickly and easily, and tend to forget about the consumer altogether.

When we sit to discuss a change project with a client, the number one element we look to understand in depth is the need (the ‘Why’) of the change; the number two element is the stakeholder group – the consumers of the change. It is absolutely critical to hit these two, and as early as possible.

It is equally important to scale change and build maintenance procedures. With the objective of making things ‘right,’ sometimes, we forget to scale back our change processes. Every organization is different. Its structure is different, and processes, systems, and consumption habits differ. It is very important that we take time to understand the culture and change readiness of the organization, and adjust our ways of delivery accordingly.

Finally, the maintenance.

By the time everyone gets to the finish line, no one wants to talk about ‘change’ anymore, right? I know…Change is not easy. You may be surprised to hear that this is where most of the transitional and transformational change ‘fails.’ To sustain change, we must pay attention to three factors:

• Continued communication
• Creation of feedback channels and identification of improvements
• Role modeling

So, next time you think, Oh, I can do this better, you may want to think again. After ~20 years as an I/O psychologist – and co-leading several transformational projects from start-ups to enterprises – I have learned one thing: Leading change is really not that easy. That’s why the majority of us, pardon me, suck at it! ☺

Today, we are kicking off a new video curriculum: Human Resources Management 101. In this curriculum, we will be sharing with you a series of short videos defining HRM and trying to draw attention to how better business results can be achieved when HR and management co-support different activities.

There will be 3 parts to our series.

In Part 1, we will make an introduction to HRM, talk about Management’s role and HR’s role in HRM.
In Part 2, we will dive into basic functions of HRM.
In Part 3, we will introduce key topics around Organizational Development.

We hope you subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get informed on new posts and share our videos with others who may enjoy them!

Thank you for watching!

When it comes to education, our perspective at Whirling Chief is that you have to find a program that makes you feel welcome, first and foremost. From there, you can look at rankings to decide which schools are listed in the top 20, and for what reason.

To be completely honest, wherever you look you may find a slightly different list of schools – depending on the rating criteria. The search can be frustrating. Be patient with yourself and consider getting your colleagues’ perspective. It’s likely one of them graduated from the school you’re considering (or knows someone who has, or perhaps they partnered with the school).

There are also wonderful sites that summarize school ratings, program offerings, and faculty profiles. (Shoot us an email for more information!) If you asked me for my list of top schools, there are three that are near & dear to my heart:

1. Cornell U Johnson Graduate School of Management – No, I did not graduate from Cornell, nor did I earn either of my masters there; however, Cornell has probably the longest history of Labor Relations studies and HRM programs out there. I have had the pleasure of working with colleagues who graduated from Cornell, and I have been impressed time after time with their comprehensive knowledge and practical understanding of HRM.
2. University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management – I do have a MA-HRIR degree from this school. I can say with confidence we were taught by some of the finest faculty in the area of HRIR studies. I’m perhaps a little less content with their organizational development work… however, all my classmates and I have landed wonderful jobs following our degree completion.
3. London School of Business – LSB has a wonderful Executive Education program that focuses on Human Resources. One of their faculty members, Lynda Gratton, is recognized as one of the world’s experts on organizational behavior and HR strategy. She has previously been ranked as one of the top 15 business thinkers in the world by The Times. If I were looking to have an executive education program later in my career, I’d probably seek out this one.

 Aside from these three, though, I’d really like to meet the faculty of some other schools and give them a chance to highlight their program offerings. Any tips on which schools we should reach out to?

If someone were to come and ask you as a Human Resources professional, “Which would be the one area you are most behind on?” what would you name?

For us at Whirling Chief, this is clearly the digitalization of work space.

In his book, HR from the Outside In, Dr. David Ulrich lists six competencies required to transform HR in creating more value. These include:

1. Credible Activity: being able to form relationships of trust with others while having a strong point of view about the business.
2. HR Innovator and Integrator: understanding the business and knowing how it makes money and serves customers.
3. Strategic Positioner: contributing to the formulation and implementation of strategy by creating strategic stories and aligning HR practices and leadership behaviors.
4. Technology Proponent: making sure the day-to-day work of HR is done with flawless execution by improving utility of HR operations.
5. Capability Builder: ensuring that HR practices around talent and organization are innovative and integrated.
6. Change Champion: making change happen, and sustaining that change into new cultural norms tied to customers.

Of these six competencies, do you know in which ones we are  commonly most and least effective?

We’re least effective at being ‘technology proponents,’ followed by ‘strategic positioners!’ And most effective at being ‘credible activists!’

We have to ask ourselves, then, can we really survive within our function and have our service be of value without embracing the digitalization of work?

The answer is absolutely not.

Where the use of digital technologies is becoming the business model (or a part of the model) to provide new revenue and value producing opportunities, we need to consider the human and organizational implications of that shift.

In a recent article, “How the digitalization of work affects us all,” the World Economic Forum highlights from its Digital Media and Society report that digitalization has enhanced the “flexibility for workers and employers, boosting productivity and enabling greater work-life integration.”

That is fantastic development! What a wonderful opportunity for us to embrace life and help shape the future of the workplace?!

This does, however, require us to want to be more self-sufficient and get closer to technology. We need to start understanding how the coming generations see life as something not separate or different than work. We need a deeper appreciation for remote work possibilities, access to networks, etc. There is a completely new talent force, and they yearn to work as independent consultants now. We call them ‘Agile Talent,’ and we need to start understanding how to bring these people in and out of organizations. The ‘connected’ managers want to access their organizational data, and analyze, parse, and ask questions; we need to consider how to serve them accordingly.

We can hear you say, “But where do we start?!” Just imagine…

Whether you are a HR business partner or a business leader or a management consultant, we’d encourage you to close your eyes and dream of the workplace of the future. What does it feel like to you? Is it:

• Flexible
• Accessible
• Transparent
• Authentic
• Enjoyable
• Productive
• Result-oriented
• Fun?

Then show the humility to accept that times are changing…and what a great intersection we’ve reached to evolve things!

Collaboration! What a wonderfully inspiring word, and yet how seldom it is leveraged for its potential!

Can you think of a time when you felt you really had a good collaboration with someone or with a team? It is quiet rare, isn’t it? I vividly recall one collaboration that felt like I was gaining a new family. I know it sounds strange to give a professional relationship personal value, but really, that’s what a healthy collaboration feels like…

There is so much emphasis on collaboration these days. There is enterprise collaboration, cloud collaboration, team collaboration, contextual collaboration; there are collaborative technology systems such as CRM, EIM, etc. And y’know, we intended Whirling Chief to be a collaborative environment, too! ☺

Since collaboration is everywhere, let’s try to understand what it truly means, shall we?

Collaboration, by definition, is the process of two or more people or organizations working together to achieve mutual goals.¹ It is similar to cooperation in concept, yet different in its intent of engagement.

When we cooperate with someone or an organization, we are willing to support them or do our share in hopes of achieving a particular goal. When we collaborate with someone or an organization, we are engaged in the relationship for something larger than ourselves, and we work equally and fairly for a greater goal.

One of Germany’s biggest scandals is a good example of an output of a cooperation. The Schönefeld Airport in Brandenburg was redesigned for complete renewal, including the opening of a new terminal in 2011. The leadership had proudly hired several disjointed real estate and facility development companies to engage on the project. But upon discovering a number of fire hazards close to the original opening date, the project has since been delayed numerous times…and doubled its budget.² Now, not all cooperation needs to end up short on results. This is just one example.

Bringing different team members together to ‘play their part’ in a project is one way of leading; building teams and organizations for ‘collaboration’ is another.³

When we ask people or teams to collaborate, we need to provide a few success elements to ensure solid consequences. Here are the top three most critical success elements for driving collaboration:

1. Building teams/organizations around common objectives: The most important factor when forming collaborations is to select partners who can unify around a common objective that feels equally valuable to them. There is a feeling of mutual accountability in stepping into a collaboration. For that, parties need be drawn into a strong, shared purpose and vision.

2. Focusing on values & principles over outcomes: One common mistake we make in bringing people and/or parties into a collaborative space is that we expect them to ‘adjust’ their behaviors and thinking in support of our end goal. This is not only unnecessary, but also contradictory to driving collaboration. In the July 2016 HBR article, “Getting Teams with Different Subcultures to Collaborate,” there is a great bullet point articulating this fact: “Jointly design a solution for the different and conflicting values and assumptions. Focusing on the values and assumptions rather than on the artifacts is important both because it helps everyone understand the reasons behind each team’s artifacts and because it helps you design solutions for norms, structures, and processes that are based on the same values and assumptions.”

3. Making sure we have the roles and responsibilities clarified: According to research⁴ from Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practices at the London School of Business, collaboration improves when the roles of individual team members are clearly defined and well understood – when individuals feel that they can do a significant portion of their work independently.

Without such clarity, team members are likely to spend time figuring out who needs to do what vs. the outcomes itself.

In addition, leaders who take part in ‘set-out’ objectives help single parties focus on their part to drive value.

Of course, while all of this is relevant for all business leaders and working professionals, I can’t help but wonder what does it all mean for HR?

We suspect it means three things, really:

1. When assembling teams, organizations and/or collaborative spaces, we need to make sure our leadership team is clear on their ‘WHY.’
2. Before outcomes are determined, we need to support our leaders and team, and define and commit to common values and principles,
3. We need to support our resources to be organized in the most effective way possible.

And, if in doubt, there are questions we can ask ourselves to ‘self-assess’:

• Do we enter into collaborations as peers, with each person playing an equally valued role?
• Are we joined together around a common objective?
• Do people enter into collaborations with a feeling of promise?
• Is the sense of higher purpose, values, and principles practiced by leadership?
• Do people understand the team structure and how their roles fit?
• Are teams recognized and celebrated as a unit?
• Do we have access to relevant and useful collaboration technologies, and are we encouraged to use them?

What do you think? What does the drive for collaboration mean for HR and how can we best support it?

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration
² http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-23/how-berlin-s-futuristic-airport-became-a-6-billion-embarrassment
³ https://hbr.org/2015/04/theres-a-difference-between-cooperation-and-collaboration
⁴ https://hbr.org/2007/11/eight-ways-to-build-collaborative-teams