performance

Make a difference

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“If it doesn’t make a difference, it doesn’t make a difference.”

I know that sounds ridiculously simple, but that’s because it is. In our running of businesses, in our organisations, in our practice, we need to ask ourselves one simple question, “does it make a difference?” And if the answer is no, then stop doing it.

The reality is that within most organisational situations, people are doing a huge amount of things that don’t matter. They don’t make the business perform better, fulfil some regulatory need or create value. They just exist.

If HR is to be the driver of organisational performance, it needs to be a force for change, highlighting inefficiencies and unnecessary bureaucracy and calling out redundant practice. Simply, we need to be as comfortable looking at process and improving it as we are creating it.

It also means that we need to understand the entire organisations, how and why it works and the levers and buttons that make it successful . Then we can be clear about how to help it become even better. By retaining a single and absolute focus on performance.

It probably isn’t popular or politically correct, in a world that loves a trier but hates a succeeder, however, it really is only the result that matters. If we want to be a profession with teeth, if we want to define relevance, if we want to have influence and reach, then focussing only on those things that really make things better, has to be the way.

And that starts with our practice, our behaviour and our thinking. Because if we want to be better, we need to be single minded. Focus on results, focus on performance, forget the rest of the nonsense. If it’s not making a difference, it doesn’t need to be done.

Value destruction

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The economics of the employment relationship are pretty simple.

We hire resource, put it together and hope to extract more value from it than we invested.

It really is as simple as that.

Now that value could be financial or it could be something else, it really doesn’t matter in this sense. But the point is, that everything that diverts resource away from adding value is destroying value.

– Every time we create a form that isn’t necessary
– Every time we hold a meeting that doesn’t need to be held
– Every time we ask for a report we don’t need
– Every time we add another level of sign off
– Every time we ask for another presentation
– Every time we include someone in an email, FYI

We talk about creating value, but what if we focused on stopping destroying it?

People should be facilitated to do their job, to have purpose and contribute to something and to do the work we pay them for.

Not tied up in endless process and organisational spaghetti.

Our goal, our strategy if you will, has to be to maximise the return on investment and that means freeing people up to use their talent, skills and ability.

Not checking whether they are.

A dignified exit

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As sure as night follows day, the one thing I can guarantee in your HR career is that you will need to let someone go, fire them, relieve them of their duties.

Because as much as helping people to join our organisation, helping people to leave is a part of our role and responsibility. And there will be a myriad of reasons for leaving, from performance to conduct, to reorganisations and retirements. But regardless of the reason, one thing remains the same:

You will show your true colours as both a human being and as a professional by how you handle these situations.

Too often, we take the easy option, disassociate ourselves and treat the people who are leaving as the reason. We depersonalise them, process them and rely on the legal framework and organisational procedures to justify our actions. After all, we are just following orders, right?

Well, we know all about that.

The trick, the challenge is to help people to leave with as much dignity and respect as possible. For them to be able to leave, heal, regenerate and become productive again as quickly as possible. Ideally in a job or company to which they are more suited.

There are very few examples, a handful over my twenty years of practice, where I’ve witnessed something so incredibly mean spirited, wrong or illegal that it warranted the full force of organisational justice. And in most of those cases, the authorities were also involved.

In the large majority of circumstances, it is instead the company who hired the wrong person, didn’t train or manage them properly, or just let things slide. It is the company, the organisation, that is responsible.

It might seem easier to blame the individual, to place the onus on them and to avoid any level of empathy or understanding. But ultimately this backfires on you, the organisation and the individual. So next time you come up against a situation, ask yourself this:

“What is it that I can do to make this as least traumatic as possible”

And then do it.

It won’t necessarily change the outcome, but you’ll be doing that person a service, protecting the reputation of your organisation and putting the human back in HR. You’ll also probably sleep better at night too. Trust me. Give it a go.

It’s not you, it’s me

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I’ve never met a CEO who didn’t want a world class HR service.

I’ve met a number who didn’t know how to articulate it, who described HR but called it something else, who talked about the importance of talent management, skills development, workforce planning, incentivisation and organisational performance.

But I’ve never met one who has said, “people are not important and I don’t care what I get out of them”.

On the other hand, I have met a lot of CEOs who are fed up with their HR functions, with their HR teams. Who see HR as a barrier to all the things that they want to achieve and who focus on areas that they don’t see as important.

If you look at any survey of CEO priorities or concerns, you will see time and time again “people” concerns in the top five check it out, year on year on year. There is no shortage of opportunity for us, to be involved, to influence, to be central to the development of our organisations.

So what’s the point of this? The point is simple.

Where we fail. WE fail. It isn’t our organisation, it isn’t our company, it isn’t our CEO. It is our inability to win the debate, to drive the agenda, to create the opportunity. And the bitter sweet thing about this, is that we have total control.

I’m fed up of hearing about the organisation that didn’t want this, or the CEO that didn’t like that. We need to focus the debate on our own performance and the standards within our profession. If you talk to any headhunter working within HR, they will tell you of the dearth of talent. If you ask them about their experience working with HR as a client, they’ll tell you of their despair.

This isn’t about rebranding, or “having a dialogue”. This isn’t about changing our name or shiny new logos. This is about a fundamental shift in the standards that we accept in our profession and being relentless in challenging ourselves to do more.

And I understand that there will be people saying, “Morrison is banging on again” and yes I am, and I will continue to do so. Because I’m passionate about the work I do and the work that my team does. I see organisations that are demonstrating real commitment and value. But they are the few and the far.

Too often, I see sub standard HR professionals and HR teams. That are failing to embrace the opportunity that is right in front of them. Don’t listen to me, read all the articles and the stories about them. Go speak to “normal” people and ask them their experiences with HR.

The HR agenda is being hijacked by a tree hugging, granola munching minority, that talk about creating something new. These are the same people who left corporate life because they couldn’t make change happen and couldn’t stand the pace. Otherwise they’d be doing exactly what they were talking about inside their previous organisations.

And whilst they will tell you that they can make change happen from outside, the truth is they can’t, because the agenda they espouse and the mistruths they propagate are exactly the things that frustrate the CEOs. They are the weak and sickly branches of our profession that need to be clinically lopped off in order to allow us to grow and flourish.

I’d love this to be the year that we really wake up, but I don’t think that’s going to happen just yet. But if we are to move forward, we need to embrace the undeniable truth…..

It’s not them, it’s us.