The difference between the Human Resources Manager and the Director of Human Resources is direct access to the CEO. If you want to sit with the grown-ups, you have to earn a place at the table.

HR Manager

The HR Manager is perceived as a functionary. Like it or not, others in supervision see the HR Manager as managing a purely administrative responsibility. And, when this position reports to the CFO or COO, it only confirms the impression.

This doesn’t mean that the Manager can’t get “no respect.” Peers and senior leadership are grateful when HR policy and practice gets them out of a bind. For example, they like you to hire and fire, to resolve disputes, and to manage risk. When you are seen as responsible for payroll, records, and benefits administration, you are largely responsible for this limiting perception.

HR Director

An HR Director reports directly to the CEO and should be accepted as a peer with the c-crowd. But, given that most of senior management pictures the traditional HR functions, you have to shift the paradigm towards one of management and engagement.

The shift is from manager to strategist, displaying personal development and corporate value. You need to make yourself “indispensable” for the quality of your advice, your knowledge of the business, and your participation in their departmental and corporate goals.

You earn their attention and respect to the extent that you contribute something strategic, something tactical and outside the norm of their original paradigm and directly related to their departmental outcomes.

• Define and communicate departmental goals and performance targets.
• Show the strategy and tactics to meet and exceed the goals.
• Demonstrate personal energy, charisma, and self-confidence.
• Write short and long-term strategic plans for yourself, department, and personnel leadership development of peers.
• Make HR Department as transparent as privacy guidelines permit.
• Work productivity into all plans.
• Observe team behavior at different levels and in different divisions, so you can replicate the values in your department and in your peer relationships.
• Learn the language of productivity and quality improvement to see how Human Resources communications can be translated.

Reinvent the job

If you want to be treated like a strategic partner, you need to learn a new language. HR Managers have been trained in euphemisms and soft tones, and you do not want to lose that skill. But, you need also to develop a more assertive tone and use metaphors that reflect financial smarts, negotiation interests, and process orientation. You want to be recognized for a voice that facilitates and influences.

When asked to produce reports, produce results. When assigned to complete a project, compete for the edge. When asked for your opinion, reflect a team’s input. Management and engagement are, therefore, tactics to raise your profile and position you to have the influence you want.

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There was a time, not that long ago, when all records were kept on paper in file drawers. A good business practice was to purge those files each spring. The Human Resources staff would audit each file and arrange the documents in a preferred order. When the HR manager was satisfied, the files would go back in their respective drawers, and some would be moved to storage. Oh, the agony!

When employers brought computer servers into the business, HR was their last consideration. The company’s computer gave preferential service to the financial functions and to the departments that interacted with finance, such as purchasing and operations.

The advent of desktop computing made things easier for HR. Files became data, easier to sort and edit. More staff could access the data simultaneously. And, discs could backup and store the files.

It took some time before HR realized there was information in the data. The data was live because there was something organic there. If you listened, it would tell you something about the present and future. Some HR people forget to monitor this information once they have outsourced their HR information to HRIS. As always, if the HR professional does not ask the right questions, the system will not answer.

Now, we are moving to the Cloud/SaaS – or some version of it. The Cloud can only be described through analogies. But, it appears to be an apparently inexhaustible “place” where the whole world’s data swims. It does not breed there unless told to do so. It remains allegedly secure and immediately accessible. It takes up no office space, and it is accessible to everyone with permission. And, those permissions can be distributed by authority level, function, and need.

HR leadership needs to shape the Cloud to its needs, not those of IT or Finance:

• As a company gets bigger, it cannot escape the fact that its world is getting smaller. People are working closer together than ever before even though they may be physically further apart. They deal with the same goals, same mission, same projects, and same customers – even though they are never in the same office space. HR needs strategies to use the Cloud to value both the individual and the whole. For example, by directing employees to the Cloud, you encourage their community participation with access to documents, forms, policies, and forums.

• Today’s employees know how to use tools and hardware. They know how to “socialize” on the internet, research unknowns and value the known, and influence public opinion. HR must lead in putting tools in front of workers, in challenging them to align work with targets, and in assessing how employees work effectively and how those modes can be imbedded as models.

• If Cloud technology can make business more agile and efficient, HR is the logical source for talent assessment and development. It must lead in removing silos or barriers to the availability and exchange of information – while still respecting privacy and compliance issues. HR can build strategies into the Cloud and its outputs, future-directed strategies that provide real time data and future trends to the CEO and anyone else in the C-group.

The Cloud is where you want to be, a virtual file, memory, and haven. It is the nexus of information and data needed by and supportive of all business functions. It is the key to centralizing informed data for all corporate stakeholders. The Cloud gives HR unparalleled strategic opportunities in information management, talent development, and tracking futures.

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Each year, IHRIM packs the best HRMS education, information and networking into their conference. CompareHRIS.com is excited to be attending this year.  While we don’t have a booth, we will be walking the exhibition hall and chatting with our HRIS partners and prospective HRMS vendors.

If your organization will have representation, we would like to meet you.  Please provide us your name and booth number under comments so we may come by, say “hello” and get the opportunity to put a face with the name.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Deborah Scroggin, President

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As a business forms, every function is taken for granted as a necessary and serious contributor – except Human Resources. No one questions that there are roles for finance, operations, and sales. Finance will expand with Payables and Receivables, Operations with Shipping and Handling, and Sales with Marketing and Customer Service. But, Human Resources is Personnel, an administrative function – a necessary evil, at that.

Depending on the foresight of leadership, the HR function will remain under the radar in a perpetual struggle for recognition. Despite all the MBA school idealism and the human capital euphemisms, HR still remains somewhat on the back burner. If it does not contribute strategically, it is partly HR’s own fault and partly the myopia of the senior leadership.

The Smallest Businesses

Because there is virtually no task other than clerical in the smallest businesses (less than 25 employees), HR is a records function. In its first phases, a small business can manage its clerical tasks internally or externally. Quickbooks, SimpleHR, OrangeHRM, and People-Trak HR all administer records and run payroll. They will likely keep your small staff in FLSA and FICA compliance. But, they do nothing for so-called “human assets.”

However, this could be the first opportunity to form a strategy for the future. For example, some software apps are more static than others. Choose one that has potential for expansion in numbers and quality. Business growth may be steady but slow; still, you may want to introduce the potential for performance and training tracking, management planning and talent management.

Bigger Small Businesses

Simple software applications are not enough once HR issues start adding up. Software does not discipline, praise, or motivate. If administrative functions have been outsourced to software or vendor, the owner/manager must still manage the more human issues.

So, somewhere around 150 to 250 employees, a business will hire a Personnel or HR Manager. This “manager” role is prophylactic; the job is to keep the wolf from the owner’s door. It is not a policy making position, and, at its best, it satisfies itself by running a tight ship. This begins as a one-person office and grows with low-level employees.

Growing Businesses

Once over 250 employees, any business will be pulled in several directions. The volume of the clerical work, the administrative burden of staffing, and the level of employee stresses, all increase exponentially. But, because HR does not produce, handle, or ship anything, it is deemed as non-productive. And, all overhead is subject to cost reduction.

That perception of HR will continue unless HR can change it. Among its options are to frame strategies with a clear return on investment. It must mine the avenues it has control over:

• aggressively negotiating the cost of benefits
• structuring compensation consistent with strategic futures
• partnering with peer managers to realize their respective goals
• providing data and human capital futures before they are requested

These skills are not easily outsourced and develop an HR Manager’s personal maturity and professional respect.

Maturing Businesses

At 500 plus employees, the corporation needs current, authoritative, and accountable input. This is where an HR Director earns his/her stripes. The Director status ideally reports directly to the CEO, so HR has an attentive ear on issues of talent management, hostile workplace, and compensation issues.

If the CEO respects the role of HR Director or VP, increasingly complex administrative tasks are managed down the line or in HRIS. The HR officer is adviser, counselor, and arbiter. HRIS lets the HR Director offer solutions not problems, strategies not limits, confidence not concerns.

Big Businesses

As companies go national and global, HR is a whole other animal. Basic personnel needs are handled in place or on location. Benefits and related costs are well into the millions. And, a certain level of human costs – turnover, litigation, and so on – has to be forecast.

Once division responsibilities become divisible by function, the most sustaining strategy makes human assets important again if the HR Director is equipped to forecast and add future values. With HRIS information available in real time to the officers in the C-suite, the HR Director can integrate data to support the allocation, development, and management of talent to support strategic goals across the corporation.

Human assets gain value as a function of HR leadership. If it leads, the assets will develop. If it does not lead, the leadership and the assets remain functional.

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Below are some interesting numbers pulled from the 2013 HRIS/HCM REQUIREMENTS REPORT published by compareHRIS.com.

The full report shows responses from almost 1800 surveys collected throughout 2012 which ask HR professionals and decision makers like yourself, a series of questions about HR system requirements and the importance of each.

Purchase Full Report

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In the first decade of the 21st century, social media and mobile technologies have risen to the forefront in the recruitment of new talent by human capital management departments. More recently, these same “consumer tech” tools have begun to be leveraged in other HR functions, most notably in intracompany communication and collaboration.

While business owners and upper management certainly recognize the value of these social media and mobile technology tools, there is no general agreement as to who in the organization should administer, monitor and safeguard the company business that is conducted on them.

The Conundrum for Management

When it comes to technology, most business leaders do not automatically think of the HCM department as the “go to” people. They are more likely to envision HR personnel as people-centric and non-technologically oriented. Nevertheless, HR is most probably the department that has most readily embraced customer technology and integrated it into their ongoing functions.

In fact, they have already dealt with many of the problems that arise when conducting proprietary company business on social media sites, over the Internet and through mobile devices. It may not seem a natural fit but the HCM personnel may indeed be the most qualified candidates for the job of implementing consumer tech tools across the entire organization.

Expanding the Role of HCM

No one is saying that the IT department will not play a part – just that HCM can handle the administration and enforcement processes. After all, it is only when the technology fails to work that problems develop. Then, people must become involved in the resolution and no one is better than HCM at dealing with people.

If ultimately given the responsibility to oversee an enterprise wide implementation, one of the challenges that HR departments will face is changing their outlook on the traditional ways of dealing with inter-office communications. After all, it would be unfair and ultimately counterproductive to use social media and mobile technologies to find new talent and then prohibit that talent from using the same social tools in the fulfillment of their work-related duties.

In short, HCM (or whichever department is placed in charge) must not see themselves as a hindrance to social communication but rather as a catalyst to engagement, communication and collaboration. In this way, HCM will fulfill an even greater strategic role in the organization.

The Three Steps to Expansion

Developing a consumer tech strategy for implementation across an entire organization is itself a collaborative process. All departments must contribute to the identification of needs and also align their efforts with each other while IT develops and implements the solution with the oversight of HCM.

1. Identify the Need

The use of surveys at all employee levels about the current state of consumer tech usage is essential. Once an overall picture is drawn, further assessments can be made as to what is desired and actually needed to facilitate the use of social media and mobile technology.

2. Align the Effort

With its access to the employee background info, current performance reports, and forecasted talent needs, the HCM department is ideally placed to coordinate the collaboration efforts of the organization across all manner of business goals. This overview is powerful and can create some insights and will allow HR to further facilitate communication between department heads and IT. The end result is better technology solutions for the needs that matter.

3. Provide the Solution

Once IT makes its recommendations and the solution is green lit by upper management, HCM can, again, oversee the implementation. Kickoff meetings, introductory videos and online tutorials are just some of the tools that will allow HCM to promote engagement by all stakeholders in the new solution

The Opportunity for HCM

There is a lot of work in expanding the consumer tech across an organization but the rewards are a better insight into company operations and a more strategic voice in management. In short, HCM cannot afford to ignore technology or even innovation.

Instead, it must be the leader in its implementation in all its forms and across the entire organization. While there will undoubtedly be issues that arise as a result of this expansion, the other risk is to simply be left behind as an important but minor arbiter of company policy as it relates to its employees.

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Too many Human Resource professionals do not have enough education in HR technology. Their experience with manual processing often decides their future. They are simply not ready to let go what they are familiar with and/or what works for them. Why let HRIS reinvent the wheel?

To be fair, this reluctance also comes from their sense of the human element. They might like the HRIS ability to count, categorize, and calendar. But, counting and processing human capital is just not the same as processing financial or marketing data. People problems are just different than product quality or process problems. How can HR benefit from improved HR technology and still maintain their special sense of employee involvement?

HRIS requires buy-in.

As HR principals, we need to lead. While many of us have learned on the job and/or grown through earlier software generations or have studied about HRIS in college, we have a professional and personal obligation to stay ahead of the curve.

We are often in a reaction mode, facing employee issues as they arise while allowing HRIS no more room than our filing system. HR leadership demands that we have the information to offer and implement HR strategies that will help define and shape corporate concerns about direction and ROI (Return on Investment). When a CEO asks for HR information, s/he is not looking for last quarter’s report so much as what next quarter will bring.

Before we can expect business leadership to commit to HRIS investment, we have to buy fully into the value and return ourselves. Only then will we have the depth and motivation to convince management that the new cost is better than doing nothing. But, since there are no production units to count, it may be difficult to justify the investment.

How HR affects company revenue?

It most certainly does even though Human Resources functions have always been considered a non-revenue generating expense load. Think of a corporation as a pyramid with layers.

• The largest stratum at the base is filled with support functions: IT, facility maintenance, accounting, and human resources.

• The next layer consists of junior and middle managers who try to steer the operation of the pyramid towards the established goals.

• The level above is where revenue happens, departments that reach customers and produce money: sales, customer service, shipping and handling, and so on.

It’s this revenue level that we must keep happy – and informed. For example, when Sales loses a key Sales Engineer, they worry about losing his dynamic on the sales team and about what business the employee is taking away. But, in real financial terms, there is a measurable loss each day it takes to fill the function. Here’s the math: the Sales Engineer is responsible for $3,000,000 a year, so each day lost can cost the department $12,000 (allowing the position two weeks vacation). So, if there is no job candidate in the pipe, this piece of turnover will cost $1.2 million over two weeks of recruiting and placement. In other words, there is a way to calculate the cost of turnover: exit through hire through training to speed. (Some of the loss is booked and old business, but that can be included in the calculations.)

HRIS shapes strategic HR.

A well selected Human Resources Information System allows the forecasting that other managers and officers need. For example, with employee costs accounting for 30 to 50% of the total expense burden, any modification of these expenses will have significant impact. So, HR becomes a star performer if the system is equipped to forecast impact pending even the slightest change in insurance or retirement benefit costs.

• It can demonstrate – and, thereby, make very real – the short and long-term impact of expansion or allocate specific production costs.

• It can report on the total cost of a change in the compensation cost or a union demand. It will drive HR managers to immerse themselves in all aspects of the business operation, to the benefit of HR and the other departments.

• In short, a good HRIS system will provide all the forecasting necessary to coach corporate leadership to a decision on the allocation and/or human capital management.

Because HR automation manages the calendar as well, it can improve overall employee job satisfaction by initiating employee performance assessment, wage and salary reviews, birthdays, anniversaries, and probation dates. And, this returns us to the start.

Conventional HR management has introduced HRIS with some temerity and allowed it to perform these personnel management chores. Until we are willing to take a larger risk on and able to justify the ROI on a contemporary HRIS system, we are not taking the lead expected of quality HR professionals.

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Every decent manager recognizes the need to cultivate and keep the best of the best on their team. Still, every manager has also been confronted by an excellent employee who has finally decided to leave the company for no discernible reason.

While it is not possible to keep all of the people happy all of the time, a good manager should consider the reasons that good people leave. Here are five of the top reasons why the best employees sometimes fall through the cracks and how you can sometimes recover their loyalty before their departure:

• The Company is Under-performing – Admittedly, this situation is hard to repair if it is true. Still, many companies suffer in down markets and the employee may not realize that the job market is not that promising. Explain the more salient facts and hope that the employee can make a reasoned decision.

• The Employee / Employer Relationship is Damaged – Not all business relationships get off to the best start. A shaky start can have unrecognized consequences. Bear in mind that some employees must be “stroked” or their egos do not feel justified. In addition, employees may mistake your original corrections during the training period as an overall criticism of their work ethic. Don’t lose a valuable employee because of an ego issue; either yours or theirs.

• Life Moves On – Employees do a lot of things for a lot of reasons and they do not always revolve around their work life. Babies are born, relationships fail and sometimes the Lottery is won. You cannot control all the variables in an employee’s life but you can be reasonable in the demands that you make.

• Coworker Tension – An employee, even a manager, can have a good relationship with his superiors but sometimes the other employees can make his life difficult in one way or another. This situation is particularly difficult to remedy as favoritism or discrimination can be cited by the other employees. Often, a change of venue or position can keep a valuable employee in the company without causing any further undue strain.

• Stagnation – For the truly great employee, a job must remain challenging with ever increasing amounts of responsibility. Losing one of these gems of an employee because you have become comfortable with the situation is unconscionable. A good manager is always cross-training his subordinates and preparing them for greater responsibility including the fulfillment of his own job. Otherwise, he has no hope of advancing his own career.

Eliminating the Cracks

One of the best ways to stay on top of your employee’s ongoing satisfaction with their jobs is to utilize a Human Resource Information System. An HRIS can archive an incredible amount of information from counseling sessions to exit interviews. This information can then be used to identify the weaknesses in your employee retention program.

The solutions can range from something as simple as better employee feedback programs to far more ambitious expanded employee training programs to relieve some of the pressure on your location managers. In every case, however, an HRIS will allow you to better organize, manage and retain all of your employees, especially the very best. It is an investment that will pay handsome rewards.

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While almost every successful company collects tremendous amounts of information regarding their financial and marketing activities, only the most forward-looking use analytics to drive the effectiveness of their human capital management (HCM). The use of analytics is integral to the success of the most outstanding companies. Not only do the resulting workforce management strategies help in the near-term with the current lagging economy but also position the company for the inevitable recovery when it arrives. 

Many companies make the mistake of viewing HCM analytics as a luxury rather than a necessity in down economies. More prudent companies realize that these analytics can help them lower costs when top line growth is stagnant by identifying redundancies and inefficiencies in the work force. More generally, analytics can help with worker turnover, benefits, succession and training. 

The Power of Workforce Analytics 

While it’s been said that statistics can be molded to support any position, careful consideration of key performance indicators (KPIs) and other business metrics can give a decided edge to decision makers in any company. Whether your aim is to identify key business relationships or anticipate certain outcomes, the use of analytical tools such as descriptive statistics and predictive modeling in the HR realm can make a significant contribution towards achieving your company’s goals.

A second benefit that analytics lends to the HR directors and their staff is increased credibility. Backed by facts, figures and credible projections, HR personnel can contribute on an equal level with the finance and marketing departments to more confidently affect executive decisions and company objectives. It’s a win-win situation for HR and for the company. 

Implementing HCM Analytics

There are several schools of thought as to the best way to implement an HR analytics system but most advocate using a staged approach. In most cases, it makes sense to obtain buy-in from all departments and stakeholders by consolidating all data sources onto a unified platform. An immediate benefit is that authorized employees can access a wealth of information in focused and easy-to-use reports.

Secondly, the implementation HCM department and the executive suite should define metrics that are meaningful to the company so that the provider can develop the resources to deliver them. Lastly, a “dashboard” with all relevant info and reports can be provided to the main decision makers. Eventually, HR can consider and develop more sophisticated tools for analyzing a greater variety of information. 

Making Informed Decisions Today and Tomorrow

Workforce analytics can be incredibly powerful in the current recession as it helps determine program cuts, workforce reductions and talent re-allocations. Similarly, the users of these systems can model scenarios when the economy begins to turn around. In many cases, these “analytics pioneers” will have a better understanding of the variables involved as they will be the ones including them in the models and the studies. 

Having accurate analytical studies and models at your fingertips places one in a powerful and influential position. Not only can you explain why some business occurrence happened but you can also make some very good predictions as to what will follow. It is indeed a powerful place to be.

Are You Ready for Analytics?

Forward looking, HCM directors have already changed their attitudes towards analytics and embraced a culture of modeling and predictive study. Instead of merely documenting and evaluating past behaviors, they are actively dissecting the current trends and behaviors in their organizations through the use of analytics. The trend is only gaining ground and any company that hopes to remain competitive should consider implementing an HCM analytics system.

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