I’ve been doing this for a long time, over 20 years actually. And in the time that I’ve been in HR, I haven’t really seen much change until recently. By that I mean, the way we do HR hasn’t changed much. And really, that’s because employment law doesn’t change much. And it’s because the core premise of how businesses run doesn’t fundamentally change much. And the MBA programs that teach people how to run businesses really haven’t changed much.
So what HAS changed?
What we have instead is a lot of superficial things changing. There are shifts in the economy that impact workforce growth, there are business culture shifts that seem to impact the way we are doing business (like the trendy new management approach or renewed focus on engagement), and there are trends in employee expectations that change and evolve over time. Recently, with the pandemic, we’ve seen significant shifts in employee expectations, really interesting discussions about equity in the workplace, and fascinating models of how work gets done. We’ve found that work doesn’t have to happen in an office and that more people than ever before can make a living by working for themselves. This is the most unprecedented change we have seen in my professional lifetime, and presents us with an opportunity to re-consider how we really do HR.
The most interesting shift I have seen in recent years has been to call HR “People & Culture” or “People Experience” – and while I agree that the term “HR” comes with a certain negative connotation, I’m not sure that the name change reflects an actual shift in the underlying role of HR.
What are the Core Functions of HR?
When I think about the true role of HR, it ultimately comes down to a few core functions:
- Protecting the organization from human risk
- Ensuring that the company has the right humans in the right seats to do the right work
- Trying to keep humans as productive as possible
Because of these three foundational reasons-for-being of HR, the historic reputation of HR existing to support management’s business goals rather than supporting the employee experience, remains true.
Organizational development is usually where the culture parts of HR happen. This is where we look at things like leadership development, engagement programming, organizational design and teambuilding. But combining HR with culture creates a real tension. If HR is going to be primarily concerned with creating a supportive and engaging environment for employees, or if a company wants to switch to an employee-first culture, then the moments when HR has to take an action that falls into the category of “Protecting the organization from risk” or “Trying to keep people as productive as possible”, contradicts the new brand that the HR team has been trying to create – and thus results in employees not buying it. Employees continue to know that at the end of the day, HR exists to complete its core functions.
What can we do to evolve HR?
As I have progressed in my career, I’ve become more and more passionate about finding ways to do HR with authenticity and care. This is probably fueled by my discontent at having to take actions on behalf of leadership that have not aligned with my personal values and that could have been strategically designed to do less harm. Changing how we approach HR requires changing how we philosophically approach running our businesses and requires having leaders who are ready to think about partnering with People Leaders to create companies that understand that successful businesses are built by people who feel successful.
Businesses are not built by a few key leaders who run a dictatorship over their human realms. And the conversation at each company trying to grow and achieve its business objectives HAS to be one of “How do we uniquely create an environment where our people feel successful so that we are collectively achieving our business objectives”.
When that shift occurs, then HR can function as “People & Culture” leaders. The three primary functions of HR will always remain. But the conversation shifts from “us against them” to “us with them” – and how we do HR can actually evolve.