Tuesday, April 17, 2007

HR's Real Products: Talent and Trust

Toss aide all of the fluff and you'll find that human resources departments have only two responsibilities:



  • Finding, keeping, and developing talent and;

  • Maintaining trust in selection procedures and redress mechanisms.


If they fail to fulfill either category, then they have committed a large enough sin to justify a termination or two, starting with the HR director.


Unfortunately, many HR departments fumble by:



  1. Not aggressively seeking talent;

  2. Finding talent and then not developing it;

  3. Finding talent and then not creating career paths so talented people can remain with the organization;

  4. Neither objectively seeking talent nor striving to retain it;

  5. Violating personnel procedures to please upper management;

  6. Not monitoring their own selection procedures;

  7. Adopting an adversarial tone with employees in order to please company lawyers;

  8. Failing to provide timely and substantive assistance to departments;

  9. Ignoring injustices; and

  10. Managing to the dysfunctional.

In order to avoid the mistakes cited above, HR professionals must be willing to take on their own upper management team whenever those executives threaten to harm the two main responsibilities of Human Resources. This is not easy and doing so can be risky.


But if HR is not going to speak up, who is?

And who guaranteed that you can live an ethical life without risking your job?



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michael, what advice, then, would you give a mid 30s financial analyst who goes above and beyond to try to advance his career? In other words, I'd like to become more than an FA. How do I go about it?

Michael Wade said...

Pawnking,

Just a few thoughts: The first thing that I'd advise is to specify your goal. The "more than an FA" part takes in a lot of territory and your escape/advancement plan will gain in effectiveness as it acquires greater detail. As you identify your goal, make sure it is yours and not one that others expect or pressure you to have. [I've coached some executives who are in jobs that they hate and yet they worked years to achieve those positions.]As you consider your goal, ask yourself which professional achievements have brought you your greatest joy and whether that goal is closely tied to that work. Consider any additional resources needed to achieve it. List the allies/contacts who can help you. Develop an action plan with steps and tentative dates. (Visualize the perfect campaign and do your best to fashion it.) You may well have to achieve several incremental goals to reach your main one. Be cautious when sharing ultimate dreams; some people are dream-stompers. Don't simply be results-oriented. Improving the efforts (e.g. public speaking skills, management,language or computer skills, etc.) that are likely to produce the desired results can be as important as taking certain steps. Review your organization and determine if your goal can can be achieved there or if you must eventually leave. One final point: Pretend that you've achieved your goal. How do you feel about it?

I hope this is of assistance.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmmmm. I suppose I will have to identify the goals then set about acheiving them. Thanks, MW.

Michael Wade said...

I know it sounds obvious. The underlying message is that although organizations should be interested in developing talent, many don't. You have to consider yourself just why you should be selected over all of those other "products" out there. [In my experience, people tend to overlook or underrate significant skills that they possess.] But your initial goal analysis is crucial. It is as if you are calculating the coordinates for a sea voyage but at the same time you know that at some points you will have to adjust for storms and currents. Good luck!