bbc

Who is HR responsible for?

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In the fallout from the BBC pay debate, I found myself responding to indignant comments about the “state of HR” by pointing out that I very much doubted that the contracts that were under discussion were covered by the BBC’s HR team. The debate was around the payments made to the “talent”, the actors and presenters that were contracted to the BBC. They weren’t (as far as I can understand) actual employees.

I haven’t worked in television, but my guess is that the commercial contacts for “talent” are probably handled entirely separately to the pay and wage structures that would be handled by the HR team.  A comparison would be a football team – whilst many of the big clubs now have HR Directors, they’re normally responsible for the teams that operate behind the scenes and not the players themselves. That’s why situations such as a Bosman can occur – something that would never normally happen in an employment contract.

The closest I’ve ever been is my time in publishing and I think it would be fair to say that it would have been considered entirely bizarre if I’d suggested as HR Director that I should have had some input to the structure of the contracts that were signed with our authors. But should I have had?

That’s the real question that the situation at the BBC brings to the fore. Most of us in well run businesses now are focussed on pay structures, on job evaluation, equal pay and of course gender pay reporting. But only for those “employees” or “workers” that are seen to be the remit of the HR department. In a world where increasing focus is being placed on the fairness of compensation structures should we be extending the same principles that apply to employees to other associated groups of people (I’m not entirely sure what to call them as a collective). Not necessarily as the responsibility of the HR function – simply using the same methodology.

The BBC have rightly had the light shone on them, but what about Sky, ITV, Channel 4, Amazon, Netflix etc.? And whilst we’re at it, what about the vast difference between the pay of premier league footballers versus their female equivalents? Are there justifiable reasons? Which other industries have groups of non-employees where there are discriminatory pay practices that pass under the radar because they’re not strictly considered employees?

Maybe this is an opportunity for HR to share its knowledge of remuneration and compensation management with other parts of the business. To use our expertise in handling similar situations and the lessons we’ve learnt as we’ve worked to improve the balance between our employees. If our principle concern is unfairness, it seems to me the issue goes far beyond the BBC.

 

 

HR skills aren’t transferable

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In the coverage of the BBC redundancy payment enquiry, something stood out for me. It wasn’t about the importance of HR being the moral compass of the organisation, I’ve written about that before. It wasn’t about the fact that behaviour not words drives culture, I’ve covered that too.

It was a question that Justin Tomlinson MP raised regarding a statement made by Lucy Adams, the HR Director, in an interview that she gave back in 2010. The exchange went something like this:

Q183 Justin Tomlinson: Lucy, going forward, how important do you think human resources skills will be in ensuring that licence fee payers get value to money?

Lucy Adams: In relation to severance arrangements?

Justin Tomlinson: Yes.

Lucy Adams: What Tony and I have done in the last few months is put in place a range of governance arrangements, policy changes and communication to make sure that things are better understood. So in many ways, because room for exceptional payments has been closed down, room for payment in lieu of notice has been closed down, and room for anything above the cap has been closed down, it will be an easier role for managers because there will be very little room for manoeuvre. 

Q184 Justin Tomlinson: But you have had to use your HR expertise and skills to ensure that those systems are watertight.

Lucy Adams: Yes. 

Q185 Justin Tomlinson: Do you remember your interview with the CIPD-an organisation “leading HR into the future”-in 2010, when you were quoted as saying that you are not an HR person and you do not have a traditional HR background? Do you have the skills to put those systems in place? 

Lucy Adams: I have been a senior HR director for over 10 years now. What I was referring to in that interview was that, first and foremost, I am not somebody who is isolated from the business that I am in. I believe the remainder of the quote was, “I’m first and foremost a business person”, and that was to point out that you can have people who understand policy and best practice, but who do not get engaged in the business. I am very keen to be involved in all aspects of the BBC. 

Q186 Justin Tomlinson: Have you ever run a business? 

Lucy Adams: I have not run my own business, no. 

Q187 Justin Tomlinson: You are not a business person. [and then continues questioning]

Now I wasn’t there and these notes, albeit official, are still uncorrected. But they raise a really interesting point about “business skills” and “HR skills”. It also comes back to a favourite topic of mine, “commercial HR”.

When I interviewed for my current role 5 years ago, I described myself as “a business person who understands HR”. I was wrong. I’m actually a “HR person who understands business”. It isn’t semantics, it is an important yet subtle shift in emphasis.

It isn’t possible to just “do” HR without any skills or experience, you can’t just learn it, there is no other complete transferable skill set from any other profession. Organisations are systems, and the HR interventions that are properly needed to support them are systemic in their nature. You need to understand the range and complexity, the feasible, the impossible. Too many times Adams refered to “custom and practice”, the last vestige of the lazy or unskilled, as if that somehow explained everything.

As I get further into my career, I appreciate more the experience that I’ve had – both good and bad – and how it helps me to see different things in an organisational context that other parts of the organisation don’t, and shouldn’t be expected to, see. The best part of two decades worth of experience can’t be absorbed overnight.

The problem with positioning yourself as a “business person” or arguing that we need more “business people” in HR, is that we belittle the skills and experience that organisations desperately need to run effectively. And these are the skills and experience that only those who are genuinely interested in building their personal competence in HR can provide.

You don’t understand how to build successful compensation systems, how to develop organisations, the hard wiring of recruitment to talent to performance to results, the importance of a good employee relations agenda or how to successfully develop leadership cultures by watching from afar. You’ve got to be in and amongst it.

Of course everything exists in context and we need to understand the other areas of business too, so does everyone who works in an organization. But we are HR people, not business people. And that is something we should celebrate, not shy away from.