Today’s HR Department, What It Should Look Like: Show Notes & Transcript

Post | Nov 26, 2024

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In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re talking about how HR can evolve to better support the needs of businesses today. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

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Show Notes
Strategic Counsel Summary
Transcript

Strategic Counsel: Today’s HR Department, What It Should Look Like

HR (Human Resources) has been a staple of organizations over the years. With all the changes to the workplace in recent years, is your HR department due for an update? We believe HR can evolve to better support the needs of businesses today. That means moving beyond compliance and administration with a primary focus on people development, cutting out what doesn’t belong anymore, and hiring differently. Hear our ideas and personal stories from our career in this thought-provoking episode. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

What it takes to shift organizational paradigms
The evolution of HR as a function
Why the hiring process is broken (and has been for a long time)
Using HR as the hub for people development
Who should be in charge of setting culture?
The primary trait you should be looking for when hiring for HR
The future of HR as Anne & April see it

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

Today’s HR Department, What It Should Look Like
- [0:29] Tough love for the evolving identity of HR (Human Resources) function
- [1:54] HR has not often been seen as being for the people
- [3:19] Tension between HR managers and Gen Z & Millennial employees
- [4:24] HR’s role in hiring
- [5:41] When trainings become a one-off band-aid solution
- [7:29] HR needs to shift its focus to people development
- [8:51] Who’s to blame for the generational divide
- [9:50] Where HR sits contributes to its policing function
- [10:19] HR shouldn’t be a catch-all, it needs to be a distinct function
- [12:05] What should their primary focus be?
- [14:32] Serving as an active champion for people, rather than a passive resource
- [15:58] It’s going to take the whole HR, the whole network in order to shift that paradigm
- [17:24] The way we hire and vet new hires is outdated and disjointed
- [19:50] Third eye positioning to be more objective
- [21:13] HR could be looking on the issues, to provide a different perspective from being in it
- [22:29] Who’s responsible for setting culture?
- [24:01] Make HR really connected to what’s going on
- [26:15] Putting HR at the helm of culture builds relevancy and inclusiveness
- [27:58] It’s important for somebody to understand dynamics & people
- [29:26] Leaning into people development
- [31:19] Reorienting HR to a positive standpoint creates a more human interaction
- [33:39] Negative feedback and reprimands should be the minority of what HR does
- [35:05] What things is HR no longer supposed to do anymore?
- [36:05] Workplace safety doesn’t feel like it should be on HR plate
- [37:55] HR folks aren’t positioned to onboard anyone into their job because they’ve never done those jobs
- [39:19] Reviews are the responsibility of people who work with you everyday
- [42:02] Co mpliance folks are generally not who you people people are
- [43:26] HR is essential to your company’s growth
- [44:52] HR people should be hired first and foremost as stewards or directors of culture
- [46:37] HR department needs to shift to being people oriented (instead of focusing on compliance)
- [47:57] What’s one insight you’re going to put into practice?
- [48:15] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- [48:18] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Linke dIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct, and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team, and your business. Now let’s get to it.

00:29
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel Podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about what today’s HR department should look like. So if we’re going to be totally honest, which you know, that’s kind of how we roll on this podcast. Yes. Of course, not meant to judge and not meant to criticize, but always meant to bring a little bit of tough love. The one function that has really struggled

00:54
we think of finding a new identity amongst this evolving environment is HR. And the fact that we actually still call it human resources too, which we’ll get to in a second. Yeah. Could we just say people? Well, we could, but see, I think now, you know, we, we’ve started to introduce these titles like chief people officer and things like that. And I, I don’t know, I don’t know how you feel April, but I feel like it’s a little bit of a vanity title. If you, cause like, what is it? What is a chief people officer? Like, what does that even do?

01:25
I mean, there’s no tangibility to it. I don’t feel like it means anything. I feel like it’s supposed to represent something, but I’m not sure what it actually means. Well, because there hasn’t been the change. Well, and I think that’s it, is that, you know, we kind of talked about HR, or kind of the legacy of HR, being it’s supposed to be about the people. That’s right. But I think, I know over my like 20 years at P&G, being in a corporate environment, HR’s definitely not been a function that’s been recognized as being

01:55
for the people in all cases, and we’re gonna get to that in a second. And so when we kind of just kind of make this like swap and say now HR is the chief people officer without it having that evolution, like you said, to be more functionally oriented around people, it feels a little shallow because traditionally, I think HR has been more about compliance administration and people, right? And so, like I was saying, if you kind of consider, and I kind of go back on

02:24
repeat of what we would basically, or our feelings towards HR when HR was brought up. They’re not always warm and fuzzy, right? Because HR generally came in the picture when there’s something wrong, you’re going on some sort of performance plan, you have a grievance, you need to hire somebody, you need to fire somebody. It’s just not generally in the context of your

02:52
part of the organization, driving some elements of the organization. It doesn’t feel like that kind of like a role, if you will. Now I say that and I’m not meaning to trivialize like HR managers, because I definitely feel like we need HR. And I’m just gonna call it HR for right now. But I just feel like it does need to evolve into something that is a little bit more conducive to how do we are actually…

03:19
building organizations today, some of the struggles we’ve had with the general feeling of Gen Z and millennial and how they approach life, which is very different than a lot of these HR managers and the way they’ve grown up, this whole idea of quite quitting, everything that’s happened since COVID and you have in the work environment and working outside the work environment, all those things and balancing all those things. So I just believe HR can actually be the hub, kind of pulling it all together and uniting it.

03:47
So hence why I’d like to talk about what HR operations should look like today. Yeah, I would say yes to all of that. And as I was reflecting on doing this episode, it really is an interesting conversation because on the agency side, when it came to HR, yes, they only came in in those instances you outlined, but the other piece that I think always left us scratching our heads was how far removed they were from the business of what we actually did.

04:17
And you mentioned hiring, and this always became very apparent when we were trying to find candidates for roles that we had open in the organization. It always required a heavy lift of other staff members in the vetting and interviewing process because it felt like while HR might be able to understand the essence of, you know, who we are, where’s the culture when it came to like, what are these people actually going to be doing day to day and what is the job?

04:47
there was always this huge disconnect there. And I think it was because of what you said, Anne, which is it was about compliance and administration. And also in agencies, we never put good focus on those things, if I’m really honest. And so what you would- So much can be said about that. Yes, that could be a whole other episode in and of itself. But so you’d only have one or two max. And in some cases, this was for an office of a couple hundred.

05:14
or you wouldn’t even have anyone that sat in your office, it would be at the corporate level or the home office level, you know? So it just always felt kind of like this, what are they doing? Not in like a, what are they doing all day? But like a, why do they kind of sit over here? Which I know is some of what you wanna talk about today. And then the other thing that would happen is someone would say, we need fill in the blank training for some.

05:41
And so then it became a reactive situation where it would be like, oh, VP, blah, blah, blah. So we need training. So one time I remember we had presentation training for the entire office, which actually was really good. I felt like, oh yeah, this is something I can use. They recorded you on tape and helped you understand how to get better. But then like, that was it. And then it was like, okay, well, what’s like the calendar of training or the strategy behind training or all of those types of things. And it just was treated then as a one-off. So it just felt

06:10
very disjointed from the agency perspective. And I just found myself like revisiting the real of all these moments where I literally felt like I was sitting there like, huh, well, that was interesting. And then we just kind of moved along and off. They went back to their corner. But I think that brings up a really good point. And you can see us like reiterating a lot of our personal experiences and your personal experiences may be very similar. They may be very different, but I think.

06:35
we’ve all had some level of the same experience or all have in our mind, kind of what our personal perception. Now, again, don’t mean to anger a lot of people who are HR. I’m not trying to, yeah, a lot of times they facilitate our payments, so please don’t hear us say we’re mad. Right. I think what the whole point of this is like, how do we drive incremental value or how do we exponentially drive value around?

07:00
what has become kind of to what April was seeing a little bit of like the Ketchol department to some extent, but as well as a lot of the work and what was valued 10, 20 years ago in the HR department needs to evolve. Yep, that’s fair. And I think that’s kind of at the core of it. So we said at the beginning that HR is a lot about compliance and administration.

07:29
But where we think it really needs to shift is a focus on people development. Yeah. Right. And to the point that you were saying about really recognizing what is important within the organization and really putting a mindset focus on that. And that’s because, frankly, for most businesses, people are their number one asset. But in the recent years, and again, I mean, I don’t like to blame COVID for everything.

07:58
but it was a dramatic shift in the way that we operate and we do business. It’s become kind of before COVID, after COVID, kind of dynamic of how we are treating our people. And now with people having, we’re designing a little bit more flexibility, like I said, in the in-office environment, in the out-of-office environment, it seems like, and we said this a little bit in the recruiting and retention episode that people are kind of throwing up their hand and going, well, then you know what? I’m not gonna do any of this stuff. I’m not gonna do…

08:28
any of the people development. I’m not going to do any of the culture development. I’m just going to let the things kind of roll and we’re just going to focus in on business. And I’m just going to make people come in if I want to make people come in. And I’m just going to make people kind of go do this in this process and this way that I want them to go do it. And it is causing a lot of conflict. And I think we just have to recognize that. We have to recognize that.

08:51
The world that we grew up in, and I’m not going to go back to my tie box again, but just to reiterate, the world that we grew up in, Gen X and Gen Y, is not the world that these millennials and these Gen Zers are growing up in. And by the way, we made it like that. So we don’t blame anybody, we just blame ourselves because we’re the ones who had those children and they’re our younger brothers and sisters and all those sorts of things. So if we want to blame anybody, we can blame ourselves. With that all being the case, we need to create the right environment for them, the right support structure for them.

09:21
And so that means relooking at what we think HR’s role is and being able to more conducively establish a place that feels like a safe, supportive, empowering place for the people that are our workforce. And one of these things that we need to really, really consider are some of the logistical things that have kind of oriented HR in traditionally a space that’s not so favorable. So.

09:50
It’s not unusual that HR is nested under finance. It’s not unusual that HR is nested under legal. So that automatically kind of puts HR in that compliance, in that like policing of behavior and all those sorts of things that they kind of get that negative connotation. So their ability to actually be able to be people-people is somewhat compromised because they’re trying to play both sides and automatically have kind of gotten associated with those…

10:19
those organizations that are more strict, more compliance oriented, more black and white, dare I say less people oriented. Now I’m going to have all the finance and legal guys all over me and girls. I think regardless of your paradigm for how you’re thinking about HR, what I wanted to really reinforce is that it shouldn’t be a catch-all, which we’ve started to make it one, especially for the small businesses.

10:49
And we need to kind of disassociate it with other functions that are typically more, call it the compliance or call it more management, black and white focused and a little bit more by the book and kind of help it establish its own place of being. We talked about this in the beginning of it feels a bit contrived or maybe that’s my word.

11:12
to put people in the title when the function hasn’t changed. And so as I think about this, it’s really flipping the department on its head, honestly. I think there’s lots of ways in which that’s done. You need to better integrate it into the company. Like I said, it can’t sit over in its little corner. Like you said, it can’t sit under these other departments that have this more serious non-people focus. I mentioned things like.

11:37
they need to actually understand the business. They should have expectations and evaluation metrics and things just like everybody else in the organization, where typically they’re the ones owning it for the rest of the organization. And one of those things should be to understand the business of what we do here. And so I think in a lot of ways, to the point of reorienting from the people, it’s about getting to know all of the people as you.

12:05
as humans, which, okay, we said human resources, but within the organization in order to then solve for what is everything, the culture, the strategy, all of that. And not that that onus falls specifically on them. And I know you’re gonna get into, you know, what should their primary focus be? But I think it is a complete mindset shift for folks in this position, or maybe it’s how you hire people that are gonna enter into this career when we think about the next generations.

12:34
so that it is more foundational and integrated, and like you said, truly about the people, instead of getting distracted in the things that need to happen, or things like, you know, we need to cover ourselves. So to your legal point, and those types of conversations, those fear-based conversations seem to be more where they sit versus, okay, how do we help this organization really embrace who it is on its best day, and what is my role?

13:01
Well, I mean, I think even the word itself, like when you talk about human resources, resources to me sounds just so passive. Yeah. Like it’s an organization, again, set in order to manage the work environment, but in a very passive way, which is very similar to legal, to finance, which I mean, now I’m not saying legal and finance are not important factors in business, but it’s a much more passive function when you’re comparing it to…

13:31
people who are operating in the business or people who like, so it’s just a framework to kind of think about how do you get the mindset shift of being or feeling like you’re in a more passive policing network into like what you said, somebody who’s integrated into the day to day into the fabric of the organization and helping to drive the business and day in and day out, which is what we really, really need. Because frankly, when you think about the structure of the organizations, you know, the leadership structure all the way down.

14:02
80% of the focus is on doing the business, which means maybe you have a percentage of the rest of the 20% that’s focused on the people. Even in a leadership position, it’s really hard to actually cut that out and disassociate what’s going on with the business with how the people are feeling, behaving, and acting. Even though we try and we give you all kinds of leadership guidance and training tools

14:32
wonderful things that can help you kind of get out of that paradigm. Having somebody else who’s kind of watching it, being vigilant upon it, really helps to provide that feedback, that third party point of view. They’re not in it, so they’re not as emotionally tied to it, but they can actually be a champion for the people while the work is being done versus a passive resource that’s sitting out here of like, I’m going to run through all the administrative stuff and I’m going to do all the tasks.

15:00
Again, important things, I’m gonna get to how we handle that in a second, but we want HR and this people thing to be a real career path for people, right? And so in order to do that, it has to be seen as an essential part of the organization and not essential in the way that the function itself in the work that it does is essential to the organization. But how is that function driving the organization? How are they responsible for?

15:29
It’s growth, it’s revenue, it’s the way that it’s going to be seen five years from now. I mean, those are things, those are visionary things that HR can have a very, very big role in playing because they understand how people operate, how people work, what kind of infrastructure you need in order to support the kind of things that the business is demanding of it. And so it’s a different, I think it’s totally different mindset. And some people are leaning more into that direction and they are trying to evolve into that direction.

15:58
It’s going to take the whole HR, the whole network in order to shift that paradigm, I think. Wouldn’t it be great if when they show up in the room, you’re excited they’re there because they’re representative for you instead of being fearful that something’s wrong. Yes, something’s wrong. You did something wrong. It says a lot, right? That’s the kind of mindset shift we want to make. I think everybody from HR managers to the organization feels that way. I’ve alluded to it, but let me get a little bit more granular.

16:27
based on the organizations that we’ve provided strategic counsel to, an organizational development to specifically related to HR and how we have helped them to see this organization and or this new HR organization and what are those specific buckets look like? And so let me take you guys through that a little bit and then April I’ll invite you to jump in. So the one bucket, big bucket is talent acquisition and retention. Yep.

16:57
So again, some tough love guys, but for many of you, these processes are broken and outdated and they’re not connecting. So we’re relying a lot on recruiting platforms and frankly, it’s getting us a little bit lazy. I’m not going to go into all of the details because we have two really fantastic episodes all around recruitment and retention. But what I want you guys to really understand about this is that the way that we hire, we

17:24
and the way that we’re vetting new hires, the funnel has gotten so long and the dots are not being connected. All right, so we’re trying to still try to streamline it as much as possible, which is why we’re using these recruiting platforms because we think it is going to help us fast track, but there’s really no substitute for building your recruiting and your retention pipeline in a way from like beginning to end. That is…

17:55
conducive to getting the right people in and then keeping those right people in the seats. And I firmly believe that if this isn’t its own organization, if you’re not big enough to have talent and retention as its own organization run by some very talented HR people, it definitely is a primary HR function and value needed role within the organization. Yeah. I mean, so we have those couple of episodes and I don’t want to restate the whole thing either.

18:25
I do feel like this is a place where we’ve talked about butts in seats before on the show and just getting people there. And I think we’ve turned the corner on that where people are now like, that’s not working. Yeah, if you have a revolving door, then it’s not working guys. Yes, exactly. So definitely go back and listen to those. But I do think that this is one of those key places where when we think about orienting around people and making sure that whoever you have,

18:54
It’s kind of like both sides, right? It’s like figure out the ones that you want to keep and retain that are the right fit for what you’re trying to do and then use that as the filter when you’re looking for new people and try to build from there and then of course shed where it’s not working out, but kind of looking at those two pieces together and allowing them to work for each other. And sometimes it’s what’s missing from the organization perhaps. So I think providing that higher level visionary filter that you talked about before, Ann, of like coming in and seeing what’s happening.

19:23
and connecting those dots and maybe being able to say, you know, I think we’re missing a little bit of like the energy around, I don’t know how we work on this or this department’s missing some of it or whatever, where you can start to think about the profiles of people that are needed. And then same thing with the ones you wanna keep, who are the ones that are gonna have the pulse that you can keep an eye on and see one, how they’re doing, but also how is the organization as it relates to the presence they bring to it.

19:50
You can see just by the way that April was articulating that the importance of having somebody who’s looking on it, not in it, and being able to really be developing those things from that third eye positioning where it can be a little bit more unbiased, a little bit more objective. That’s definitely one for sure we believe HR has a very big role to play in. Well, I think it’s also it can be proactive.

20:19
where you feel like you’re in trouble or whatever, typically things went to HR when it was so bad that nobody else could handle it. So in this instance, I think if they can become more of that third eye, have the overview, whatever, they can be identifying outages before they become problems and addressing them versus, well, these two can’t get along or this department has fallen apart or whatever, now you’re getting called to the mat. It’s a more positive forward thinking approach.

20:46
Yeah, I think that’s a really good point because it definitely has the ability to see around corners and to see trends and to see where there might be some breakdowns occurring that maybe it’s hard for you to see internally because you’re in it again. So for somebody to be able to take that kind of the 30,000 foot view and be like, we’ve seen this happen before in other organizations and this is generally what’s going on. It’s especially helpful when the problem is the leader.

21:13
Which none of the subordinates are going to call out, but if the problem is the leader, this is a really great role for HR to really help, and that would be another one, organizational development and culture. Look at you setting yourself up. I know, but you skipped one of my points, so I’m going to this one and coming back. What do you mean I skipped one? Well, I was going to go to people development first, but then you’ve led into this one, so I’m going into this one, and then I’m going to come back to people development. You’re mad at me about the order? Well, no. Since you said we’d be into this, I have to be flexible.

21:43
I think I’m in trouble after this episode. Old way of HR is how we operate. No. Do what I said. No, I’m just kidding. You’re not in trouble. I’m just segueing. This is me being an outline. Supposed to be an outline. Well, yeah. Well, we’re gonna be, we’re just gonna kind of go with the flow on this. That’s the name of the game, right? Sure. As April was saying, and I segued into organizational development and culture. And I think this is like a lot of times, like April said, this can happen on two, from two different sides of the coin. One is,

22:13
being a kind of oblivious of what’s actually happening in your organization because you’re too in it, but then also letting the people decide everything. So this is when I generally ask about culture. And I ask an organization who’s responsible for culture and everybody goes, we are. We are. And it’s like, no, one person’s responsible for setting the culture, the rest of you are responsible for living the culture, right?

22:37
And that sounds like a very Machiavellian way of kind of like stating the roles and responsibilities, but it does put the accountability on one person who’s like, okay, we need mission vision values. We need an incentive program. We need a development, a career development path. I mean, not that the HR person has to be the only person who develops these things, but one person needs to be responsible for the organization, organization, these things. And it generally, again, should be that person who is overseeing

23:06
from that third party point of view or that third eye point of view or that 30,000 foot view, we fill in your analogy, the organization as a whole. Because they can start to knit things together, they can start to kind of bridge them into other ways of being able to cascade into other organizations and that starts to build company processes, systems and those sorts of things, which then can help to drive scale consistency culture across the organization.

23:35
This also could be things like events and activities. A lot of these things tend to get pushed down again into the organizations, which is fine, to go execute. And even to get input and feedback about what would feel like something that feels like a really great way to celebrate this organization. So you can definitely get feedback, but somebody needs to be the holder of it, or somebody who’s a champion of it, if you will.

24:01
in order to make sure that it takes hold, that it has the consistency, that it has some traction because people will come in and out of organizations, they come in and out of functions. And so you need that consistency across the board to make sure that it’s maintained because it really becomes a backbone in the vibe of the organization. Well, and I think this is another place where it can turn HR to be a more positive thing for the organization, but also…

24:29
make the department really connected to what’s going on? Because I do think, I always love that answer, who’s responsible for the culture? We all are. It’s like one, two, three. And the Sink Sunky Boys too. We all are. Yes, yes. But I think it is important to have someone or the department as the holder of this so that it doesn’t get left behind. Because I think,

24:55
when we talk about what percentage is actually focused on this, everybody else is over there doing the work. And so again, I was a part of many agencies, and we’ve talked on previous episodes about how the culture, the coolness, or whatever of the organization was the thing that would differentiate whether you wanted to work at one agency versus another. But then that was an added thing on all of our plates to help get that right. And so then it was like,

25:25
And I mean, I liked doing it, so it wasn’t typically something that I would get mad about. But for a lot of reasons, it could become a distraction because you had people that they would rather spend all their time there. Then they wouldn’t want to do their day to day. Then you’d have people would be like, it’s another thing on my plate. And then you’d have disagreements about what is the mission, vision, values, culture, like, you know, all of that stuff, and not necessarily someone in charge of making the decisions.

25:54
And then like I was saying at the very beginning, it would lead to a lot of one-off things or like certain teams that always went out to happy hour or teams that always went out to lunch and then ones that didn’t and all of that. So I think without someone at the helm, it can be really inconsistent. And I think that putting HR primarily in that role builds a lot of

26:21
relevancy and inclusiveness from the standpoint of like, they really become part of the organization and the teams, but they’re also able to pay off something that kind of gets placed here, there and everywhere and is contingent really on the people. So I know we make the joke about, we all are, but in the absence of having somebody.

26:44
it just kind of gets dropped, right? Manager’s like, oh, this person’s really good at the fun stuff naturally. They can be the culture person on this team or that, you know, over here, we need someone. So we’re gonna nominate so-and-so instead of it being strategic and intentional and then thereby making it that much more authentic and deeply rooted. Well, and I think what you said about intentional and I think about being comprehensive are very, very important. Comprehensive, yeah, that’s good.

27:07
Right, because you’re right. I mean, we will do our little things like in our little pockets and call it culture, which will like, oh, this group always goes to happy hour or this group likes to go play golf or this, I’m like, whatever, or this group doesn’t want to do anything at all. Right. And so- The anti-culture culture. Or they are like, I just come to work to work kind of thing, right? I’m not going to participate in any of the other culture stuff.

27:30
None of those things are wrong necessarily, but it doesn’t drive consistency across the organization to create a vibe and a backbone that the organization can then grow from and then use as a basis for recruitment, for talent retention, and all of those sorts of things. The results aren’t as big. Yeah, and I think at the end of the day too, when you have somebody that’s within the organization trying to manage the culture in that way or directing the culture in that way,

27:58
it starts to become, and it looks like it’s a little bit of that person’s agenda versus the organizational agenda too. So I think it’s really important for somebody, again, from sitting in HR who understands people, who understands dynamics, who’s thinking about inclusivity, who’s literally looking about and paying attention to how everybody is looking and how everybody’s feeling about certain things to really kind of pull that together into what we would call typically culture.

28:27
which reads really nicely back up to my second point, which is all about people development. And maybe this is a really good way of talking about it. You talk about the culture and then you talk about the people. So maybe it was a good happy accident. Okay. But it goes to kind of the things that we were saying. Then once you understand what the culture is, you have the basis for really developing the people within the culture. It becomes a criteria by which to really state like, hey,

28:56
Are people good fits or not? And there’s no definition of what a good fit is or not. I mean, we’ve talked everything from Ray Dalio and Bridgewater and the radical candor to Google and there’s slides in every building and you could take bikes across, I mean, there’s no definition of what a good culture is, but it is defined. And with that you define it, you can then develop your people within it, which again is a hugely important job of people who are of a function that is oriented and geared.

29:26
to really understanding and acknowledging people. So what this could look like from the people development piece is again, things like career path management, training, coaching, compensation. You know, we used to call these things employee relations, but again, that feels like such a passive way of describing what this could really totally be, especially in this day and age where a high touch is so important, high engagement is so important.

29:51
People understanding how I’m feeling, how I’m thinking and valuing me for what I’m bringing to work is so important. This is not a grinded out kind of environment anymore. So we need that engagement at that level that’s not passive. And it’s not just a place where I’m gonna just go complain that there’s something wrong or somebody’s gonna come in if I’m doing something wrong. And it leads to a lot more of a proactive, like you said.

30:20
point of view about how important are our people? How are we going to really develop them into leaders, into these new positions? And it becomes a whole lot more intentional. And then in the case when the HR person does have to serve the role of being the bearer of bad news by giving negative feedback, people get that it’s coming from the right place, right? Because they’re seeing all sides of the organization. And that’s just a natural way of building trust. And this is what this is all about.

30:49
is if you build trust from both aspects of like, I get you, I see you, you’re relevant in this whole grand scheme of this environment and this workplace. And so therefore, what I have to share with you or how I’m caring for you is coming from a good place. Yeah. I mean, I keep going back to like HR being negative or wherever they show up, it’s like with the big storm cloud over the top of them. But what I really like about this is,

31:19
once the department or the person or whatever is reoriented from a positive standpoint and in this role of really being looked to as the keeper of the people really, then I think it does become that much more of a human interaction, I don’t know what other word to use there, where if you do get called out or you do have to be given some tough feedback,

31:48
or those things do need to occur, the reputation of the person or department can back itself up. So you know that it’s not happening just because, or it’s not happening because someone else said so and so needs to be reprimanded. This group is integrated in the organization, and as part of that and their role of preserving the things that we’ve talked about so far, they also have to be the gatekeeper when it comes to people that aren’t up.

32:16
holding their end of the bargain. And so I think this becomes a lot less of a tension point, as long of course as it’s done within the vein of all the things we talked about culturally with the systems put up and all of that. But I think it can be a lot more effective, a lot kinder, and also just part of the day to day instead of these blips where it’s like all.

32:43
you know, here they come, it’s gonna rain down on us, whatever, where it’s just part of how we preserve the workplace that we’re in, and that is their role in the organization. Yeah, and I think that’s a really well put, and I will say, and we’re not blind to the fact that, even though we’re trying to evolve to the people piece, that there isn’t an element of compliance that’s still really, really important for HR professionals who are educated in those things to have to take on.

33:11
So that would be the fourth one here. So we talked about talent acquisition retention, people development, organizational development and culture and now compliance. These are the processes and policies. And I think that still continues to be maintained as a core HR function. But again, it does not need to necessarily be nested in a area that’s traditionally aligned with the negativity or the.

33:39
policing of people in that way. And so consider that, but also you can do it in a way then that is shifting the narrative to some extent. So again, if you have to provide that, the negative feedback or that the reprimand or whatever that looks like, it’s coming in the vein of being the minority of what you have to do. Yes, that’s the majority of what you have to do. That’s what I was trying to say, better say.

34:05
But still, but still it’s a very important part of the job. And we’re not discounting that at all. Now, what I will say, and I’m gonna jump ahead just a slight second, and then I’m gonna come back to this point, is that the person who’s managing compliance and the person who’s managing the people are probably different people. Oh yes. And I think this is very important because as April pointed out very early on, we tend to hire one HR person and think that they can do the job of everybody. And this even gets exacerbated in small businesses when then you put on multiple hats, your HR person,

34:35
is everything. I mean, and so they’re the people who are ordering, you know, the flowers for so-and-so, but they’re also the people getting the computers going. And they’re also the people you load them up on so many administrative tasks under the guise of HR that they can no longer do the true function of HR. Yeah. But that being said, compliance and people, those are very, very different skill sets. I’m going to get back to that in a second. So I’m not going to harp on that one because I have a lot more I want to say about that.

35:05
then okay, if this is what HR is supposed to do, what things are they no longer supposed to do anymore? Yes. Right? And so I’m going to come hit a couple of these and hopefully those HR managers are like, I don’t want to do this anymore then, I’m not going to do this anymore. So hopefully you guys are creating your own list. And that’s very, very important to really orient yourself and be an advocate for yourself about what you think your function should represent. And hopefully these things are, you guys are vibing with and you’re feeling a lot of passion behind. So things that I don’t think

35:36
And I’ll invite you to comment on this one too, April, that should be on their plate anymore, or things like workplace safety. I laughed when I saw this one. It is, it’s all the time. I’m like, what, why? I mean, there’s just no reason. I mean, I kind of get it in a very old school way again, but if you’re thinking about a modern work environment, if you need workplace safety, that should be a totally different role that is not even anywhere remotely related to that. Now, is it still people-oriented? Yes. But is it a different total skill set? Yes. So,

36:05
Workplace safety doesn’t feel like it should be on HR plate. It feels like it needs to be oriented more closely with wherever that is workplace safety for. Administrative tasks, I mean, a lot of HR’s time gets spent answering benefit questions, managing payroll. These can all be outsourced now. There is so many companies that can manage payroll on your behalf, that can manage benefits questions. I mean, a lot of the providers now have their own call centers.

36:34
So all your people have to do is call their home benefit provider and they can get the information. But we’re using it still as a kind of a catch-all for a lot of different things. And we’re kind of having in some cases be the proxy for the people engagement. But that’s not where a good HR manager’s time is best spent in my opinion. And then onboarding. I don’t think HR people should be doing onboarding. That should be left up to the function. Now,

37:02
There should be a standard operating procedure. So when everybody comes in, it’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel every time we have a new employee come in or move into a new function, but that should be the functions job. It should be the function job to make sure they have a computer. The functions job to make sure they have a welcome card if that’s the case. It should be the functions job to give them their onboarding binder and have them schedule the meetings with the people. The HR person could be there to greet them on the first day. I mean, fine, but like everybody has a role to play, but.

37:30
A lot of times this kind of falls into the HR person’s lap. And if you can think about, especially organizations are having onboarding on a regular basis, again, a person’s job is just spent doing that. I feel like on this episode, I’ve been making the points of where I feel like they can be better integrated. And we’ve talked a lot about like how the role should flip throughout the course of the conversation. This is one where I think the onboarding piece.

37:55
feels like something that is a naturally good fit for HR and that it might be moving in the wrong direction. But where before I said the function needs to understand the business and how the business operates and what people do, I only mean that as a high level. So those people aren’t positioned to onboard anyone into their job because they’ve never done those jobs. Now, if they bring on an HR person, sure. Of course that’s their job, they’re on their team. Yeah, right.

38:25
But other than that, that is not part of what they should be doing. And in my experience, it became very cumbersome when it was their role to be involved in all of that. Because I distinctly remember starting at a job where I didn’t have my computer set up for the first week, which was interesting. Red flag from the start. But so then when I would be late for one of my onboarding meetings with someone.

38:52
or they’d want me in a team meeting or whatever. I kept having to go back to HR to reschedule my stuff for me instead of managing that on my own behalf. And that’s a really stupid example. But- Well, it’s not stupid. I mean, it happens all the time. Yes. Because a lot of those administrative tasks get pushed off because those people in your nations don’t want to deal with it. Yes, yes. So, I mean, I just want to pick on the onboarding one where I think that’s absolutely a function of-

39:19
the team you’re on. And then similarly with things like reviews and that kind of stuff. Again, it’s not that, like you said, there’s a standard operating procedure. I really, really hope that you’ve heard all of our people comments, because many of them do not actually consider the people in them. But if they do, then those reviews are the responsibility of the people that work with you every day. 1000%. It’s not HR. And then it’s also not their job, like you said, Anne, to have to manage

39:48
to make, like it was almost like a checks and balances to make sure that they happened. But again, it just got in the way. So I think one of the filters, because like you said, again, each of you are gonna have your own lists that’s listening to this episode. The places where someone else could do it better, not just because you don’t wanna do it, actually could do it better, or where you’re actually getting in the way of stuff happening, those are some good filters to make your list with.

40:15
and then think about who could then take those things on and be better positioned. Yeah, because in order to make this mindset shift, I mean, frankly, you have to be a good advocate for yourself and you have to reset expectations. So like you said, if you’re asking yourself, why am I doing this? It doesn’t make any sense for me to do it, then you’re probably not supposed to be doing it. It doesn’t probably make sense. And you’re probably kind of getting the…

40:38
the flow of the assignments down to somebody who it feels like maybe could take it so I don’t have to go take it. So be very wary of those things that we’ve kind of naturally defaulted into because it feels like it’s again a catch-all for all of these people things. But even though you’re an advocate for the people, you’re not necessarily doing all of the people things. Yes. Right? So performance reviews is another good example. There’s no reason that HR should be participating in performance reviews unless…

41:07
there is an element of the performance that needs to be addressed. Yes. Then that’s the traditional role. But then again, that’s the compliance key. I was just going to say that’s compliance. Of what you do, which should be coming hopefully a smaller piece, especially if everything else is working right. Yes. It should be easier to manage compliance if you’re focusing on the people. Yes. Now, to the point, I’ll come back up to how we need to hire differently for HR then. Because

41:34
Again, from an HR standpoint, I see this happen a lot in organizations, we tend to hire for experience and skill for functions or for role responsibilities like compliance, benefits, payroll, the things, administrative things, which we just now said those should be a very much smaller portion of what the HR’s responsibilities are and talked about being able to outsource some of those things.

42:02
If you’re hiring somebody for that, like I said before, this is probably a very different person than who your people person or people people are. And that’s just because they have a different style. Like people people have a different style than people who are very analytical about processes and administrative tasks. I mean, and I’m not saying anything derogatory. I mean, I’m an engineer by background.

42:28
All right, it’d be like taking an engineer and telling him to go plan a theme party. Okay, that party will be planned logistically to the T, but that engineer will be in the corner, not dressed according to the theme, drinking a beer. I mean, that’s just how it goes. So, I mean, just be real with kind of who you need. And again, like when we told you from recruiting, looking at the psychographic profiles that applies here too, what are the characteristics you need of that person? What is the style you need?

42:57
What kind of communication do you need? So you may get lucky. There’s a lot of people will try to go and get that unicorn, but I can tell you it takes a long time to find a unicorn. So your best bet is to actually organizationally structure in order to best serve the organization. And that’s very hard for people because they see HR as quote unquote overhead, right? That has to be paid for, that doesn’t have a direct bearing on the revenue and growth. But…

43:26
If you’ve heard anything that we’ve said, if you are organizing your HR department in a way that is in this modern way that is integrated into your organization, they are part of your growth. They are part of your scale. They are part, an essential part of helping you drive revenue. You can’t disassociate the two. So to think about them as quote unquote overhead that you now have to like get taxed for is ridiculous because

43:54
They are the drivers of your talent acquisition, your talent retention, of your people growth. I mean, you need this. I mean, there’s just no other way around it, but you need it. Yeah, and I think that when you made the point before, and that made it really clear for me is when you talked about the people, people, and the compliance people aren’t the same people, but they all are part of the same department. And so I think that’s the way that you need to look at it is we gave you the outline of the areas of focus in this new world.

44:24
then you should match the people against what those primary focuses are. And then hire according to that. And then the other piece of the filter is to make sure that since we’ve said, this is gonna be your kind of cultural hub or the responsible party for that culture. Definitely make sure those people are psychographically representing what you want the culture of the organization to be. So ensuring that they are showing up.

44:52
It’s more important here than anywhere else, because back to our point about who is responsible for the culture, it’s not everyone. It’s this person or this team. So really, they should be hired first and foremost as a fit for that. And then what seat they’re going to sit on within the team. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point, a really good point, which really means that we’ve been calling it HR, but I just don’t feel like human resources is a name that totally reflects what…

45:18
this organization needs to do. And I don’t think like putting people in the title solves for that either. So I mean, we are a branding and marketing agency and I feel like we should have a solve for this. Well, I think we’ve solved. So this is how we work, right? We solve first for the strategy. Oh, that’s true. Of what we’re doing. And then coming out of this, the next idea would be that you would then rebrand it, which would include a naming structure, which then would.

45:47
set forth not only the name of the department, but then the titles of all the people below and all of those types of things. So not something we can cover in the last five minutes of this episode. Yeah, that’s fair. Although I do remember that I was going to think of one when I was in Jamaica, we go to the Royalton there and they had the, what did they call them? They call themselves the Vibe Team. I kind of like that. They would come by the pools and, you know, they would do the dancing and they would do the music and everything like that.

46:16
I don’t know, we’ll play with it a little bit. We’ll see what we come up with. That’s yours. The cheap vibe person. Vibes good. It has an attitude. All right. So to sum up a lot of what we talked about and we talked covered a lot here and it kind of went in and out in a couple of different places, but I’m hoping that within that you kind of pulled out the nuggets that are most relevant for you, but just to kind of capitalize it here. So we said that, you know, HR department really needs to shift from just being very focused on compliance administration to more being

46:46
very people oriented. And we said that there’s several kind of groupings of function responsibility underneath that, including talent acquisition, retention, people development, organizational development, and culture, and really, really thinking what these look like in today’s day and age, not just taking the outdated traditional processes from the past and trying to kind of reskin them. You’re gonna probably have to rebuild a lot of these from the ground up and really think about who your organization’s comprised of now, like what April said.

47:15
Who do you want to maintain in this organization? What is the ultimate goal of the company? And how are we going to get there? And HR can play a really, really, really big role in all of that from that third party point of view. So don’t underestimate the power of what that perspective brings. But of course we do remember, and we do acknowledge the fact that you do have a compliance role to play. Again, these are probably not the same people. So structure your HR organization appropriately.

47:44
and make sure that you’re thinking about how you’re hiring, not just from a skill standpoint, but from a psychographic aspect. And then think about all the things you’re not gonna do anymore, right? You can’t do it all, so take some of those things off the plate, push them out onto other organizations, outsource them, try to find the right place for those as well. All right, with that, we encourage you to take at least one pile of insight you heard and put into practice, because remember, strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action.

48:15
Did we spark something with this episode that you wanna talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, fort We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business. And make sure to Follow or Subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform.