By Jane Terepocki, CHRP

“Too often, we have seen HR professionals as the cobbler’s barefoot children, showing no signs of benefitting from the work practices they recommend and thus providing little incentive for other groups to try them.”    David Ulrich

The Powers of Perception
A brief story to anchor the point: it was a beautiful Vancouver spring day and an acquaintance of mine, ‘Sally,’ was walking over the Granville Bridge when she saw a Canada goose making jaw-dropping loops and dives; she was stunned to see such a traditionally ungainly bird aspiring to such acrobatics.

Then it happened—the goose began to falter. It looked as though something was wrong with one of its legs and this was preventing it from landing. Sally wondered if it had been crippled and was growing increasingly fatigued and frustrated. Wonder turned into concern and she asked a passerby if he thought the goose needed some help.

The man took one look and shook his head: “That’s not a real goose. It’s a kite.”

Sally had spent nearly 15 minutes watching what she perceived to be real.  She projected onto the bird her expectations, then concerns. The goose, not being real, was in reality nothing more than a blank canvas upon which Sally projected her perceptions.

It had all been much ado about nothing, or had it? We shared a laugh over the story, then shook our heads, as there were times when being in HR was not so different.

The Flipsides of HR
As HR professionals are we strategically swooping and looping—or in reality are we more like the fabric bird tethered to the ground buffeted by the wind.  We need to ask ourselves, “Are we leading the way or are we followers?”  Do others perceive our departments as people who “walk the talk” or as lame ducks?

While HR professionals excel in helping other departments sort out personnel issues and helping to engage their staff to reach and exceed business goals, we are often unable to see and create the same results within our own department. The end result is often burnout resulting in a high level of HR staff turnover.

Employees from other departments can be heard to say, “I like my HR person but I don’t like HR.”  How do we change this?  How do our perceptions of HR affect the reality of HR department?

Authoring Others Perceptions of HR
In Dave Ulrich’s informative and prescient book, HR From the Outside In, he stresses the importance of HR being perceived as a serious business entity—both for the survival of HR and the success of the business.  He states that for HR to survive they must turn strategy into results, and not just for other departments, but in the HR department as well, to create insights and add rich business results. Effective HR must become a true reflection of the successful business.

Having conducted thousands of interviews with a range of businesses, Ulrich has tabled the results into six competency domains, which he believes are the key to a vibrant and vital future of HR.  The following is a list, which each HR department can measure themselves against—and raise their kites a bit higher.

Key HR Competency Domains

1.  Change Champion

• Do we initiate changes within the HR department?
• Does our HR department have a reputation for implementing what we ask others to do?

2.  Credible Activist

• Do we build relationships of trust among the HR staff members?
• Do our HR professionals in different roles respect and work well with each other?
• Do our HR professionals appropriately challenge and learn from each other?

3.  Technology Proponent

• Do our HR professionals know how to use the latest technology?
• Do we research and apply the right information to make decisions?
• Do we use technology to improve how we do our HR work?

4.  Strategic Positioner

• Do we bring customer, investor, and community insights into our HR conversations?
• Do we partner with line managers and employees to shape our HR agenda?
• Do we have an effective process for creating our HR business plan?

5. Capability Builder

• Does the capability within our HR department match the key corporate capability?  (For example, if the business is working to be known for innovation, does this capability also reflect the identity of the HR department)?
• Do our HR professionals have a line of sight between their daily work and the goals of their department?
• Do we have a positive and meaningful work environment with the HR department?

6.  HR Innovator and Integrator

• Do we consistently seek to innovate within our HR department in each of the HR practice areas?
• Are we early adopters of our innovative ideas in talent, performance communication and work?
• Do the HR practices in our department reinforce each other?

By answering these questions HR has a far more effective measure of where they stand and where they can improve.  Moreover, by implementing the above ideas HR can turn vision into results, earn its wings and help businesses soar to new heights.

Jane Terepocki, BA, CHRP is an HR consultant specializing in the areas of recruitment and training.

(PeopleTalk Summer 2015)