By Laura Reid, CHRP  

Are you ‘in’ HR or a professional people practitioner?

True leaders in human resources are strong professional people practitioners who are highly sought after in business and professional services.

Herein though, there is both a science and an art to achieving the desired top results. Being aligned with organizational goals while creating a culture of outstanding service is like crafting a formula while writing a play. Removing bureaucratic roadblocks and polishing internal processes to all people to excel in their positions is the goal of all HR professionals. Being able to review all aspects of a business in detail and to earmark all of the areas for obvious best practices improvements is the domain of HR that matters most.

A Matter of Degrees
The truth is though, professional people practices are sophisticated, akin to combining a psychology, business, coaching and law degree to conduct a symphony. In business it requires a combined toolkit and talent for engaging everyone in the workplace to maximum effect. How? By keeping it personal and staying in touch.

As a professional people practitioner, you not only know each employee by name, but quite likely their spouse’s and children’s names too, as well as their family goals. When you can do that, and align those goals with organizational goals, the engagement factor in the workplace increases substantially.

Building Upon Basics
When employees know that they are not only known, but valued, this unlocks greater potential for creativity and innovation within any organization. This does not deride the other functions of HR, but build upon them. Beyond the standard, administrative HR practices is the strategic potential to increase and drive business and services for the organization.

That level of strategic thinking is led by professional people practitioners, many of them holding their Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation, capable of creating internal cultures that serve the employees and end clients alike.

Working From Within
Crafting a service culture of pride requires a definitive focus on establishing people-friendly processes. Fortunately, from the advent to the onslaught of the technologies now available, there is no dearth of tools to assist in this area. Knowing what to automate in order to free up the intrinsic energies of HR is key, but relatively straightforward: if it smooths processes while freeing focus time for strategic people practices—automate.

No matter what area—professional services or manufacturing—the processes that facilitate a business must be responsive, efficient and innovative. When developing a working culture for any organization, HR develops and implements policies and guidelines that ideally build a bridge between business and employee goals—with a logical focus on the first. However, it is bringing the employee goals into alignment that gives rise to a friendly culture wherein issues can be raised in a constructive way by all parties.

HR: What’s in a Name?
Moreover, given the pace set by the technologies that define the modern workplace, smooth processes and supportive policies are no longer the benchmark of successful organizations, but the minimum required. It is here that HR stands to drive business results most greatly, in part by redefining itself within the parlance of business.

On a personal note, when human resources was first named, I resisted the HR monicker as a quantification of people and money, and a bit of a simplification. The numbers and quantification were the easy part for anyone willing to tackle the math and backwards track statistics. Even though HR had plenty of more administrative and legal aspects to contend with at that time, the primary challenge existed decades ago—to make certain that each individual was contributing to the overall business success.

It is the ‘how’ of that last part that has carried HR into ever greater realms of business accountability—with mixed results according to persisting disengagement figures.

Just as HR emerged from the shell of ‘personnel’, further transformation is required, but perhaps more in mindset than name.

HR Leadership: Tomorrowland Today
The innovative HR professional is quite simply a positive, professional people practitioner: capable of engaging workplace cultures and driving business results. In fact, in their hands, the two are one and the same. They are capable of creating and engaging individuals, teams and organizations with strategically-aligned programs and services of substance—with a style that encourages dialogue sets the stage for greater organizational stability, growth and innovative potential.

While day-to-day HRIS diligence and tracking systems provide support, these are administrative systems which provide information for reporting, not for the day to people to people engagement. Professional people practitioners know their tech (or those who do); they live and breathe by their people.

Even though it is key that all HR professionals be able to quantify, qualify and demonstrate the ROI of their initiatives on all aspects of the business, those figures stem directly from their ability to emotively connect with the employee, managers and C-suite alike. Their approach is one of customer service on all fronts and it is one which engages everyone from the mailroom to the boardroom regardless of demographics. They are leaders in their own right, possessing the creative abilities to connect with everyone in the organization, listen and fine tune any process that to betterment of productivity and culture alike.

Strategic Approach Provides Alternatives
Case in point—the CEO says cut costs, finance identifies how to do this, and HR is tasked with implementing the cost cuts and staff reductions. However, if HR is functioning at a strategic, “professional people practitioner” level, innovative alternatives are far more likely to have preceded this scenario.

The ability to deal with tough issues and expectations are greatly enhanced when working at the strategic level—neither mired in the administrative details or up in clouds at 30,000 feet with no real connection to business goals. The strategic approach is somewhere in-between, feet on the ground and capable of great vision, but most importantly, connected to efforts and vision of any organization’s greatest shareholder—the employees.

The larger picture of potential for any business always pops into focus when employees are acknowledged and imbued with a sense of purpose and autonomy.

Refocus HR to Engage ROI
When HR practitioners themselves become disengaged, we really need only to refocus our minds on the business and those larger picture results. This goes beyond the numbers, knowing the business and wanting the best for our organizations and employees. It requires bringing it all together under the greater umbrella of workplace potential, synthesizing best practices with fresh ideas and creating a culture that engages the entire organization.

As already recognized by leaders across industry, challenging yourself to lead at a much higher—yet personal—level, creates the best business results.  Engaging employees to do the same across all levels of a business is admittedly a step beyond HR’s more traditional focus. It is, however, what defines professional people practitioners, as do the results they generate.

Laura Reid, CHRP is principal of Laura Reid & Associates and a mediator with extensive experience in engaging professional people practices for both legal and corporate clients.

(PeopleTalk Winter 2014)