The First How To Of 52

I’ve been slow off the mark with the People Perspective so far in 2020, work has been non-stop, which is fabulous and great to be working with so many new and perspective clients, but it has meant that headspace and time to write have been limited.  And for those of you that saw my post on Sunday evening about our new addition to the family, you’ll understand that family life has also not slowed down this year.

This year, in addition to my usual brain-dumps, I’ve been asked to create a suite of ‘How To’s” for the People Perspective and I have a list to get through, a list of 52 to be exact.  I’ll stick to these as much as I can, but as I get bored with lists and feeling boxed in, I may deviate from these from time to time, but I promise to try.  

I was also asked to give a view on what HR may look like this year, I didn’t get chance to get my thoughts down, but I have recorded a podcast if you’d like to have a listen.

To kickstart 2020, I’ll start with a how to that has been a constant topic of conversation over recent months, how to Transform HR.

We work with companies from scale up to global organisations and HR and People Transformation is something that many people like the sound of, but they have no idea where to start.  And what transformation means for one may not be the same for another, so how do you go about it?

What seems to work for our clients are five simple questions, simple in that you can get a lot from them when you know what to look and listen out for, and simple in that you can use the answers to create a lot of change.  Simple can, as we know, give the best results.

So, the five questions to discuss with your teams, leaders and people:

1.     Who are we?

Generalists, specialists, trusted experts, administrators, OD, L&D, passionate, wanting to make a difference? Who is in your team?  What skills do you have?  What strengths do you have?  What could you learn more of?What’s lacking?  Why do you work in HR?  How do you want to grow?  What’s your vision for the future?  What are your values?  Have you explored any of this with your team since you interviewed them? 

2.     What is our purpose?

Why are you here?  Why do you exist?  Why did the organisation appoint you?  What value do you add?  How would the organisation cope without you?  Interesting questions for any team to consider, but helpful in considering what it is that needs to change.

3.     What are we here to achieve?

Are you there purely to police the policies, as a group of HR students informed me not too long ago?  Are you there to create a better place to work?  Perhaps you are there to stop the risk of ET’s or to showcase your organisation of an employer of choice.  Different people across the business may have different views.  Some may feel that you’re not needed at all, after all – “it’s HR’s fault” most of the time.

4.     What do our customers want from us?

The size and shape of your organisation could mean that your customers want anything from booking travel and recruiting people to a strategic people function with a focus on research and development bringing the latest innovative HR thinking to enable the organisation to be an employer of choice with a competitive EVP.  If you don’t know what they want from you, you’ll never be able to deliver a high-quality service.

5.     What do our customers need from us?

Sometimes the difference between what customers want and what they need can be worlds apart, this is where you need to educate them.  We would all love it if finance gave us free reign on what we could spend, when we wanted to spend it – but the reality is that without the proper finance controls the organisation won’t survive.Or perhaps you want the latest tech from IT, after all, your competitors have the latest gadgets – but does it meet your framework, your security needs and is it a priority?  

HR has a real opportunity to educate our customers, and I’m not talking about introducing yet another policy that nobody will adhere to.  Let’s start to give our people what they need, after identifying what they want and try and bring the two as close together as possible.  If you’d like a bit more detail about these five questions and how you can get them to work for you, you can download our five questions to enable HR Transformation ebook.

It’s not rocket science, it’s people focused HR!

Kelly

Kelly is Founder of The Chrysalis Crew and Global Empowerment Coach for HR Professionals. She leads the crew with an open heart, an open mind and has the courage to challenge the status quo and do things differently so that we can change the world of work.

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