In your company, HR people are (almost) useless!
It is true! HR are a cost center: you have to pay the members of the team and to allocate them offices and equipment.
HR are a pain in your neck!
There too, it is true! HR think of applying the law and the best practice and they ask you to fill in dozens of formal documents. The survey named “Radioscopie of HR” led in 2016 by Cegos, the international leader in training, underlines the growing weight of the administrative and law constraints.
HR, one doesn’t know what that is used for!
Again, it is completely true! The survey confirms that the HR profile holds the most uncomfortable position within the steering committee.
And you certainly do agree with a famous survey led in 2015 by ADP, leader in the outsourcing of HR processes: only 24% of the employees are “extremely or very satisfied” with the HR function in their company.
Then, well: prompt the change!
Recruit an HR Director and, while requiring of him a strong participation within the steering committee, check thathe/she has phobia of HR offices.
From then, it is easy! Establish a “live my life” program and make sure he will be invited to the business meetings.That done, ask him to use a problem-solving methodology: no receipts, not easy solutions, no magic wand. Instead, get into the habit of co-designing with him what the problem is, defining objectives, listing the solutions you have tried to implement in vain. Thus, you will be able to co-create relevant and durable HR solutions for your company.
Yes, make your RH the guarantor of legal and good practices. But do more: make him the solid support of yourbusiness.
And you will see: he will re-examine the HR processes from a customer point of view, he will see mandatory agreements as many opportunities to create managerial tools, he will be an ambassador of your company when facing candidates, he effectively will represent you with the staff representatives, the trade unions and the labour authorities.
Naturally, it will be a little painful. The HR Director will want to understand the business and he will ask all kinds ofstupid questions. He will require to be part of some meetings. He will analyze the figures in his way. And, more than that, he will make funny and contradictory suggestions and will propose kinky action plans. But don’t panic: he won’t take any offense if you don’t adopt them.
In short, he will really sit at your strategic steering committee, considering the business requirements and the stakes of the field. His belief: performance and corporate social responsibility. His behavior: both humble and charismatic.
Your RH will then be your true partner. And he will have the satisfaction to really take part in the creation of added value and performance within your company. He will experiment the joy of not being seen more like a pure cost center or a necessary evil.
Backstage, he will be obliged to make the splits between operational and legal requirements which he must implement as best as possible not to disturb the operations.
Please note that this kind of positioning is much more exposed and difficult to hold than the “hidden in my office” one. It will then be your job to support your HR director. And thus, to give the lie to the Cegos inquiry: the roadmap of your HR will be a little less fuzzy, a little less contradictory.
Your HR is there to support you! Count on him! Let him be at your side and let him “stick his nose in everything”. Please do not confine him within the space of his office. He will support you even if he doesn’t understand you all the time and even when he slightly disagrees.
Dear leaders, by recruiting an HR Business Partner, you’ll recruit your loyal and useful fellow worker.
Don’t hesitate!
Click here to view Michele’s Short Bio