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For the past 15 months or more, the world has been through significant changes. At the center of it all is how we do business, work and create income. We have uncovered and discovered most of the dysfunctions in society and on an organizational level in our policies. One of the topics we were curious about was why HR had such a bad reputation in organizations, so we met with Neelie Verlinden and Joe Sweeney, co-hosts of Talentsoft's Ins and Outs of Work podcast focused on the future of HR.
According to Neelie, "It is often not that HR is doing a lousy job, but a misunderstanding about their role and what they do for the business and their people. Historically, HR has been tasked with a lot of policy implementation and administrative duties, and they are dealing with that legacy right now".
Joe said," the bad reputation is from a lack of business acumen and disconnect between HR's goals and the business goals. HR must be more strategic. There are various opportunities for change to bring it back to being human-centric.
Here are some ideas according to Joe:
HR needs to be more flexible and less policy and procedure driven
Free up time to support new laws with creativity and supporting the human element
Think of your managers as an extension of your HR team
Change management is a crucial part of training for HR staff
Allowing a culture that facilitates open conversations
Neelie is the HR expert and agrees there is a disconnect and adds HR departments are overwhelmed with policies and administrative tasks unrelated to their expertise.
She offers the following:
Creating remote policies within the historic rules and regulations
Senior-level leadership needs to be open to listening to HR and having a dialogue that includes the C level executives and finding the best solution for the staff.
HR needs to acquire new skills: people advocacy, data literacy, business acumen, digital integration and soft skills (listening, being curious)
Basing people's performance on output instead of input
Golden Takeaway: Let's be more mindful of what HR has on its plate
The real issue is the labels associated with HR and creating assumptions. HR is so overwhelmed with the basic regulations, following no room for creativity or strategy.
We must stop viewing them as scapegoats, and we all need to be part of the solution:
Being okay with being human in the world of business
Stop hiding behind surveys and procedures
Allow ourselves to be comfortable with the discomfort and get ourselves to have uncomfortable conversations
Bring the human back into HR
As humans are good at change when we allow it
Make changes in university curriculums
Mira said it best: "When you go beyond the labels, then you can change things."
This article summarises our conversation, and should you want to listen or watch the whole discussion, here is the podcast link and link to our YouTube channel.
If you would like help addressing any of the topics we explore during the show, such as Diversity & Inclusion, Cultural Change, Leadership Development, or 121 Executive Coaching. Get in touch by sending us an email on info@themindtakeaway.com or hello@cordeliagaffar.com .