Corporate conscience, employee advocacy roles must come with company-first mindset
How do they do it? Why are some HR managers inevitably in the thick of things — whether it’s a merger, downsizing or gearing up for an exploding market — while others bleat from the sidelines, “Hey, what about the people issues?”
For these latter types, life is frustrating.
How can an HR professional get to the executive table and, once there, add value? In corporate politics, who sits at “The Table” is a closely guarded prerogative. Like an exclusive country club, new members usually have to be invited in. Anyone who writes a memo, sends an e-mail or otherwise tries to press his case head-on is doomed to failure.
The one who gets his foot in the door will be the one who can show how indispensable his advice is to the strategic issues of the company.
Newcomers have to speak the language of the boardroom. That’s not a new concept, but it’s one that HR people tend to only pay lip service to. Instead of truly attempting “execspeak,” they keep trying to convince executives of the value of the “learning organization” or an “innovation culture” or being “people-friendly.” The executives come away from such conversations shaking their heads — and so do the HR managers. That’s not speaking their language, it’s trying to teach them to speak in HR-talk. It may be a worthwhile and even noble endeavour, but it’s not good strategy for someone angling for a seat at the table.
So how to speak their language? Here’s an example from a real-life HR manager who works in the thick of things. One day, while touring her company’s offices, she was approached by an administrative assistant who mentioned that she has to get to work at 4 a.m. once a month to meet a deadline for a report required by head office. While a traditional HR reaction may be to protest that this is an unreasonable demand, not to mention the possibility of danger to the employee, and subsequent legal liability, this HR manager asked her executive colleagues, “Why do the reports have to be at head office by 11? Do we have a problem with our processes that we can’t get this data more efficiently?” That’s executive boardroom thinking, translated into “their” language.
Another example. The further we move into the information age, the more low-skilled jobs are being replaced by highly skilled ones. When a company is faced with this transition, HR people usually advocate (as they should) that the low-skilled people be retrained. But that doesn’t always work. Some people are more comfortable in a more predictable, rules-based environment. For the good of the company, but perhaps not of these individuals, they need to be replaced. For an HR professional, this tends to leave a bad taste in the mouth. And yet, executives have to make these hard decisions every day. It needs to be remembered that capitalist organizations are not in the business of providing jobs — they are in the business of providing goods and services needed by the marketplace. When the interests of the employees and those of the company clash, as they sometimes do, responsible executives make the decision that is right for the company. They understand that people are a strategic resource, but like any other strategic resource, people must be managed to serve the purposes of the organization.
The HR manager mentioned in the example demonstrated exactly how HR people can be heard at the table. Her implicit assumption was that the company comes first. Her suggested solution (improving processes) will likely solve the admin assistant’s problem but in a way that is helpful to the organization.
Unless the HR manager’s solutions have that same quality of company-first, he can’t expect to be seen as a valuable member of the executive team.
This is hard for HR professionals, since they often see themselves as the voice of the people, and even of management’s conscience. These are worthwhile roles and should not be abandoned. Quite the contrary. The drive to the bottom line has caused some egregious errors in recent corporate history and consciences are more necessary than ever.
But to be at the table HR needs to provide advice that focuses on the best interests of the company and ways in which it can reach its strategic objectives. This is not to suggest that staff should be abandoned. But HR can’t speak for them at the table if they aren’t in the boardroom. Being heard means balancing strategic and people imperatives.
Frances Horibe is the Ottawa-based author of Managing Knowledge Workers and most recently Creating the Innovation Culture: Leveraging Visionaries, Dissenters and Other Useful Troublemakers. She can be reached at www.franceshoribe.com.
For these latter types, life is frustrating.
How can an HR professional get to the executive table and, once there, add value? In corporate politics, who sits at “The Table” is a closely guarded prerogative. Like an exclusive country club, new members usually have to be invited in. Anyone who writes a memo, sends an e-mail or otherwise tries to press his case head-on is doomed to failure.
The one who gets his foot in the door will be the one who can show how indispensable his advice is to the strategic issues of the company.
Newcomers have to speak the language of the boardroom. That’s not a new concept, but it’s one that HR people tend to only pay lip service to. Instead of truly attempting “execspeak,” they keep trying to convince executives of the value of the “learning organization” or an “innovation culture” or being “people-friendly.” The executives come away from such conversations shaking their heads — and so do the HR managers. That’s not speaking their language, it’s trying to teach them to speak in HR-talk. It may be a worthwhile and even noble endeavour, but it’s not good strategy for someone angling for a seat at the table.
So how to speak their language? Here’s an example from a real-life HR manager who works in the thick of things. One day, while touring her company’s offices, she was approached by an administrative assistant who mentioned that she has to get to work at 4 a.m. once a month to meet a deadline for a report required by head office. While a traditional HR reaction may be to protest that this is an unreasonable demand, not to mention the possibility of danger to the employee, and subsequent legal liability, this HR manager asked her executive colleagues, “Why do the reports have to be at head office by 11? Do we have a problem with our processes that we can’t get this data more efficiently?” That’s executive boardroom thinking, translated into “their” language.
Another example. The further we move into the information age, the more low-skilled jobs are being replaced by highly skilled ones. When a company is faced with this transition, HR people usually advocate (as they should) that the low-skilled people be retrained. But that doesn’t always work. Some people are more comfortable in a more predictable, rules-based environment. For the good of the company, but perhaps not of these individuals, they need to be replaced. For an HR professional, this tends to leave a bad taste in the mouth. And yet, executives have to make these hard decisions every day. It needs to be remembered that capitalist organizations are not in the business of providing jobs — they are in the business of providing goods and services needed by the marketplace. When the interests of the employees and those of the company clash, as they sometimes do, responsible executives make the decision that is right for the company. They understand that people are a strategic resource, but like any other strategic resource, people must be managed to serve the purposes of the organization.
The HR manager mentioned in the example demonstrated exactly how HR people can be heard at the table. Her implicit assumption was that the company comes first. Her suggested solution (improving processes) will likely solve the admin assistant’s problem but in a way that is helpful to the organization.
Unless the HR manager’s solutions have that same quality of company-first, he can’t expect to be seen as a valuable member of the executive team.
This is hard for HR professionals, since they often see themselves as the voice of the people, and even of management’s conscience. These are worthwhile roles and should not be abandoned. Quite the contrary. The drive to the bottom line has caused some egregious errors in recent corporate history and consciences are more necessary than ever.
But to be at the table HR needs to provide advice that focuses on the best interests of the company and ways in which it can reach its strategic objectives. This is not to suggest that staff should be abandoned. But HR can’t speak for them at the table if they aren’t in the boardroom. Being heard means balancing strategic and people imperatives.
Frances Horibe is the Ottawa-based author of Managing Knowledge Workers and most recently Creating the Innovation Culture: Leveraging Visionaries, Dissenters and Other Useful Troublemakers. She can be reached at www.franceshoribe.com.
