Traditionally the human resource department has been thought of and used as the policing arm of the organization. Making sure that employees adhere to company policy and protocol as well as addressing any employee benefit concerns. Today there is a push to have the human resource department take on more forward-thinking approaches, making them responsible for strategizing on how to get the most bang for the buck with current as well as new employees.
Both approaches being important and needed, they are missing the mark on how the human resource department directly impacts the health of an organization. HR should be the uniting force that leads the way on how organizational goals and combined employee talent find a way to work together so that it is mutually beneficial arrangement for all.
What Leadership Really Is
All great organizations have incredible leaders, usually in the form of a CEO or President that blazes the way for elevating the mindset of a company. This doesn’t mean in order to have an incredible company that powerful leader needs to sit at the top of the company. Actually, leadership should come from HR. For that to happen, human resource professionals need to not only go through leadership training but understand the what true leadership is.
A leader is anyone that causes movement to occur. Almost seems like the unspoken role of HR, right? To further define it, leadership is the activity of creating coordinated movement to produce actions that are necessary to create a desired result. The policing and guiding arm if you will. The uniting factor that motivates and elevates the resources available.
When management wants to roll out a new agenda, employee buy-in is essential the uniting force, the place that management should be looking and be able to count on to guide them on the most effective way to ensure employee buy-in is HR.
There isn’t anyone in the organization that should understand the talent available at the company’s disposal above the human resource professional. Being able to anticipate possible bumps or miscommunications should be a key responsibility as well.
Being the catalyst for coordinated movement will either make or break positive change within an organization.
Coordinated Movement
Human resource professionals looking to be a valuable asset to their organization, in addition to being leaders, need to understand how to create coordinated movement. That is what leadership is, that catalyst. This means that not only should the they understand the talent available, but clearly understand the end goal of management. To create coordinated movement there needs to be awareness, contextual meaning created, human resource professionals need to be masterful communicators, they need to have established trust (not only with management but with the workforce) and they need to be present.
People will not follow if there is a common belief that their best interests are not at the heart of the matter. Yes, the goal of a company is to make money. The role of the employees is to help create or produce the product or service that the company sells to make money. Today there is more to a successful working arrangement than money for time, people need to know that they matter.
The Authenticity Factor
People stay where they feel they make a difference. Top talent as well as the most seasoned skilled worker will eventually leave, regardless of pay, for a company that values who they are as a person. This doesn’t mean that management or human resource professionals need to be the best friend to each employee. Actually, human resources should be as detached as possible from both management and workforce on a personal level. These professionals should be the glue that binds everything together.
The trusted resource when a project team is failing meeting deadlines should be able to turn to HR for guidance on how to improve the team effort. Is communication clear? Are the right people in the correct role on the team, not based on title, but on talent and skill? Is the team working towards the project goal or individual versions of that goal?
Think about it in the terms of a football team. The quarterback is not what makes a winning team… neither is an incredible defensive line or impeccable offensive line… it is the coach. When teams (employees) are not meeting expectations (from management) they don’t fire all the players. The first to go is the coach because the coach is the one responsible for communicating the goals to the players and using the right players in the right place to achieve the objective at all times.
The coach in an organization is not the President, CEO or even a supervisor or manager. The coach is the human resource department. The people that decide what talents walk into the door, the job that talent will take and makes sure that all talents understand that ultimate goal of the organization.
In summary, the role of the human resource department and professionals in an organization is to be the uniting factor to bridge talent with desired organization outcomes. This is done successfully when HR professionals are true leaders that are able to cause coordinated movement. Similar to a coach of a sports team. The right coach will take a team to the championship, the wrong one will won’t. The human resource department of any organization is ultimately the determining factor of the health of that company.