Getting the Right Stuff Done

(Thanks to those of you who reached out via email and phone and welcomed me back to blogosphere!)

HR often feels caught between two worlds. In the world of payroll and picnics, HR practitioners measure their importance by how busy they are and how they make employees feel. In the world of grand strategies HR looks for an excuse to “be at the table”, to be a part ongoing discussions and decisions that affect the business. In the world of "Strategic HR" we develop complicated programs to influence culture and long-range talent decisions. My experience has been that all too often these programs are really just smoke and mirrors; fancy PowerPoints and tricky language to convince executives of HR's business relevance. This leads to executive smiles and platitudes, and ends with boardroom conversations about cutting HR as a cost center.

Regardless of whether you live in the world of pinics or the world of strategies, your world is being abandoned. Picnics can seem silly when people are losing their jobs and critical corporate programs are being cut. And any senior HR practitioner approaching a business person with big plans for cultural change is likely to get a blank look and a speech about how those programs will be brought back in better times.

In an economic meltdown “making people happy” and “being at the table” are luxuries that the business can ill afford. Regardless of industry or geography, there is only one truth in the world of business today: fear has replaced planning. Business planners feel as if they are groping around with a lighter and a hand-drawn treasurer map in an unfamiliar dark place. This is leading the people responsible for operating the business to cut most high-level engagement programs, since the prevailing wisdom is that people can’t find jobs and likely won’t be leaving. When you can't tell your CEO what the next quarter is going to look like, your CEO isn't likely to want to plan multi-year change intiatives

In the end, it doesn't matter whether you are into engagement or talent strategies: today's economy means that HR is getting whacked.

Or does it? As we discussed, HR needs to Get Shit Done (let’s call that GSD from this point forward, and turn our profanity into “stuff” so the kids can read at home). HR needs to move from grand pronouncements about “culture is everything” and “being at the table” to focusing on getting work done. GSD is more important now than ever. In fact, I will maintain that HR is more important than ever. But that doesn’t mean that we need to be happy with payroll and picnics.

Economic challenges do not suspend the laws of business physics. If anything, a shrinking top and bottom line drives a greater need for focus on results and accountability, two things at which HR have not typically excelled. Going back to doing busy work that someone else could do faster, cheaper and / or better is not a recipe for HR success. We definitely need to GSD. But GTWSD (Getting the Wrong Stuff Done) is often more expensive than doing nothing. It would be far better to have to HR professionals dressing up in cheerleader outfits and doing yells in the hall than having a group of talented HR employees committing their time, money and attention to activities which actually hurt the productivity of the employees.

HR needs to GSD. But more importantly, HR needs to be Getting the Right Stuff Done (GTRSD).

Now is the perfect time to evaluate what exactly the "right stuff" is. Any entrepreneur can tell you that chaos brings opportunity. When things are going well people get into a routine and feel comfortable. Convincing someone who is enjoying their job and getting praise for their work that they need to rethink the way they doing things is a very difficult task. Four years of tilting at windmills on this blog have taught me nothing if they haven’t taught me that when times are good, change is hard, no matter how badly it is needed.

But times are no longer good, and many good HR practitioners are looking forward to what comes next. Over the next couple of weeks I will use the idea of “Getting Stuff Done” and the current economic calamity to talk about what HR can being doing now to set itself up for success in the future. No grand pronouncements, no picnics. Just a hard-nosed look at the best work to be doing right now for generalists and specialists, including comp, recruiting, training and systems.

Comments

[Claire]

HR are not even getting the crumbs from the table.

We deal with HR managers on a day-to-day basis and they are not happy campers with their budgets being slashed.