Robin Schooling

When HR Confuses Activity with Impact

Let’s acknowledge that HR professionals are human beings (really) and, like everyone else, they can easily get caught up in the day-to-day hustle of checking off tasks on their to-do lists.

But being “busy” doesn’t necessarily mean being effective.

Activity and task completion often becomes the focal point simply because it’s easier to measure. It’s easy to track how many job interviews were conducted (check!) or how many training sessions were held (check!). But the real emphasis, which also allows HR to talk about success and the value-add of the work they do, should be about the quality and effectiveness of those activities. Did the right people get hired? Did the training sessions lead to improved performance or better team dynamics?

So how, HR must regularly ask, do we move from being activity – oriented to being IMPACT – focused?

Think Outcomes, Not Actions: Instead of merely tallying up actions (“we trained 73 Account Executives on use of the new CRM!”), we need to evaluate the results of those actions. What, beyond “attendance in training class” was accomplished? Are the Account Executives setting up more meetings? Closing more deals? Hitting their personal – and organizational – goals? Increasing revenue?

Don’t Be Afraid to Say “No”: In the HR world, there’s always more work that can be done…and sometimes HR teams keep performing tasks that are neither desired, needed or adding any value. A typical example of this (my lord I have seen this over and over and over) is the running of monthly HR reports for dissemination to the leadership team because 10 years ago Bob the COO asked for them. And while Bob has long since exited the organization, the HR Generalist is still running the reports that Bob wanted in 2014. Eliminate the unnecessary. Just say “no.”

Embrace Data: We all know this of course; it’s well past time to measure the effectiveness of HR initiatives. Don’t just track number of interviews held but measure the things that are pertinent to your business: quality of hire perhaps or time in interview stage or whatever metrics allow you to review, adjust and improve.

Engage with Employees: Don’t operate in a bubble wherein you find yourself ONLY focusing on initiatives that are either self-determined (when HR teams with no input or external insight create strategic plans…ugh) or are handed down from on-high. Rather, make sure you’re actively listening to employees and deepening understanding of their concerns and needs. Don’t fall into the trap of determining HR strategy by simply HR-navel-gazing or only incorporating top-down mandates.

Align with the Business Strategy: This goes without saying (hopefully) but there must always be alignment between HR initiatives and the organization’s overall business strategy. Going to market for new employee benefit offerings? Exploring dumping your existing HCM platform and finding a new one? Considering kicking-off an employee feedback scheme with engagement surveys and whatnot? All of those things must be done with a line of sight to the larger organizational goals.

I get it; HR professionals often feel pressure to prove their value to the organization by showcasing a high level of activity. This results in a frenzied bacchanalian orgy of busy-work (often on full display!) and the regurgitation of updates/reports to the-powers-that-be that are simply recitations of check lists.

But by shifting the focus – the mindset! – from mere activity to meaningful impact, HR professionals can become actual partners who can move their organization forward.

Busy work might make you feel productive, but it’s only the results that truly matter.

How to Make the Most of a Job You Hate

Are people still quiet quitting? Rage quitting? Staying or leaving their jobs in some other manner with a sexy/trendy moniker as highlighted in the WSJ and at SHRM conferences?

Probably. People, tired of putting up with management nonsense and crappy work environments for ~~decades~~ ~~centuries~~ millennium, have always let their feet do the walking.

And leaving a job is often not just because of one BIG thing; oftentimes people decide to look elsewhere due to the proverbial death by a thousand paper cups. The little indignities suffered every day. The piling on.

But wanting a new job and finding one don’t happen on the same timeline; it may, sadly, take months. So how to drag yourself to work each day in the meantime?

When your job description changes for the worse

Companies are forced to be agile and rapidly adjust to changing needs in the marketplace and this means your job can be drastically changed at any time, seemingly at the whim of your employer. The first thing is to assess if these are duties you just don’t like or duties that signal a “demotion” or loss in responsibility.

If they are duties you just don’t like (“Peggy, we’re putting you in charge of answering the front desk phone whenever Barb goes to lunch”) and it seems like a permanent change, you need to personally assess if its something you can live with or if you feel the need to move on. If you enjoy your job 90% of the time but this change means 10% of the time your head wants to explode, is that 10% enough to make you move elsewhere? To the unknown? Where this could happen again? Only you can answer that question.

If it seems like a demotion, it may signal that your employers doesn’t think you’re doing a great job in your current role and they’re hoping you may quit. It’s the weasel way for sure; they’re too afraid to have a meaningful conversation and merely hope you will become so miserable that you’ll decide to resign.

If your job changes radically with no explanation have a direct conversation with your manager. You will want to find out of this is part of a longer-term strategy or merely a temporary shift due to budget or staffing issues.

Talking to your boss about making changes

The key to having this conversation is never to make it all about you. Sure you may be absolutely miserable, bored beyond belief and feel as if you’re soul is withering away but hear this: your boss probably doesn’t care. Your boss cares about looking good to their boss so you need to make any job change ideas seem like their idea; focus on how changes to your job will bring value to the company and make them appear to be a leader in talent development. At this stage any conversation should focus on organizational improvement and value-adds for the company and there should be no discussion about additional compensation or money; you’re asking for this because you need and want new challenges and excitement, remember?

Prepare for this conversation by getting ready to answer questions your boss may have such as “if I let you take on XYZ task how can I be assured you’ll continue to get the rest of your job done?” or “if you’re responsible for XYZ then who will handle ABC?” In addition, you can proactively do some research; if these job changes will require that you acquire some new knowledge or master a new technology let your boss know that you are prepared to acquire it because that’s how excited you are to take on this new responsibility.

Phoning it in

Make sure you’re still hitting your goals (even if your heart is not in it), meeting deadlines and fulfilling obligations. Remember that the people you’re working with today will be the references you need for your next job(s) so don’t burn any bridges or cause them to only remember you as “that person who never completed the TPS Report on time.”

Making the most of enforced merriment

There is, quite often, nothing worse than being forced to endure the fake smiles, awkward silences, and inane chatter that accompanies the office “birthday party” celebration. But even if you absolutely cannot stand the thought of interacting with the ‘birthday boy’ it’s a sign of camaraderie and respect for your fellow human beings who toil alongside you day-in-and-day-out to at least put in an appearance. Because you know what? They probably don’t want to be there either!

While you may not want to join in on the singing and have no desire to eat a piece of sheet cake festooned with flowers made out of 5-inch frosting, you can pop your face in, offer a semi-heartfelt “hope you’re having a good day Bob” and then gracefully make your exit.

If you get a sense that no one in the office enjoys these forced events it’s possible to make a suggestion to whoever plans them (it’s usually some nice lady who works in administration or HR, isn’t it?) that the style of celebration be changed to something that fits with your organizational culture and that people will enjoy. Be warned that this can be hard to accomplish however when the company is paying (i.e. purchasing a cake and punch is cheaper than taking the whole team our to Happy Hour) or there’s a legacy program (“we’ve been celebrating monthly birthdays for 20 years!”).

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Can you muddle through at a job that you hate? Probably. But when it’s neither fulfilling or delightful you need to take care of YOU: pay attention to your emotional and physical well-being and find things to do outside of work that bring you joy.

Remember…you’re number one!

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The HR and Hiring Manager Partnership

The relationship between hiring managers and HR/Recruiting can be fraught with peril. When things are not working it’s chock-full of misconceptions, devoid of understanding, and characterized by passive-aggressive animosity.

Hiring Manager: “What are they doing over there? Why am I not getting any candidates for my open positions?”

HR: “What are they doing over there? Why aren’t they taking action on all the candidates we’ve screened and interviewed and forwarded for their consideration?”

And in our fast-paced, go-go, CONSTANTLY changing world of work (skills-based hiring, remote vs. hybrid, low unemployment, economic uncertainty, AI, etc. etc. etc.) getting this relationship rolling at top speed remains critical for business success, growth and, well, the sanity of all parties involved. Yet, far too often, this important partnership goes unreviewed and unrefreshed and the resulting cluster stagnates the entire hiring process.

So what to do? How to re-boot? After all, we share the same goal of – hiring the right people, for the right jobs, at the right time.

Define the word “right”

HR/Recruiting and hiring managers need to have a mutual understanding of what hiring the “right people” for the “right jobs” at the “right time” means.

Defining “right people” people includes ensuring clarity of the KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) required for the job, understanding of companywide DE&I goals, and understanding and supporting company-wide diversity, equality, and inclusion goals, and training all involved on the company’s consistent and equitable hiring processes.

Understanding the “right jobs” should be reviewed in the context of understanding providing opportunities for existing employees and internal mobility – representative bad take: “sorry Joe; you may feel you’re in the wrong job but we can’t transfer you until you’re employed for 18 months per company policy.”

And, when we talk about the “right time”, we need to ensure that both sides understand the realistic time frames involved in hiring.

Clarify roles and expectations

There will be minimal success unless everyone involved is clear on “who does what and when.” While this can vary at each organization and will certainly change over time – for example when there is the introduction of new technology or HR roles are added – the key is to have the process defined … with accountabilities.

A typical breakdown of roles and responsibilities may look like this:

HR/Recruiting: Architects of the process, handling system maintenance, managing requisitions, sourcing and recruiting, screening, interviewing, and forwarding candidates to hiring managers.
Hiring Managers: Planning/forecasting, drafting job description, assisting with recruitment marketing, reviewing candidates, assembling the hiring team, conducting interviews, and providing feedback/making decision.

And please note: revisiting these roles and responsibilities regularly is vital to ensure they remain relevant.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

A service level agreement (SLA), much like the ones we have with our external vendors, can reinforce expectations and accountabilities. Outlining the expected level of service from each party and how that service is measured, an SLA might include metrics such as the minimum number of prospects to be added to the talent pool, the agreed timeframe for posting requisitions and commencing sourcing activities, and the stipulated time for reviewing, screening, and dispositioning applicants.

Share information | gain understanding

One of the most common points of failure in the HR and hiring manager partnership is a lack of shared information. From the HR side we should be sharing information such as labor market data (from the BLS, state DOL or even local Chambers of Commerce), trends and research, and, naturally, our internal recruiting metrics (sourced candidates, applications, time-in-stage, etc.)

If you’re a hiring manager, ensure your HR/Recruiting partners is aware of operational changes in your department, new staff productivity measures, new equipment, industry/function news, and anything to do with your workforce planning…including whether you intend to ‘build or buy” skills and talent.

Putting it together

Despite our best intentions, conflicts and misunderstandings can arise but we can work together (I have faith!) for success when we:

communicate often and meet regularly
assist as needed (“pssst. HR? Maybe you CAN offer to schedule interviews for that super over-worked manager who has a business critical deadline”)
teach, train and reinforce learning opportunities
hold each other accountable if the terms of the SLA are broken

Will it be a starry-eyed forever match where we place a Love Lock on a bridge? Probably not.

But it can be a FINE romance!

Employee Behavior: Unable, Unwilling or Unmoved?

One of the regular tasks we often have in HR is working with a manager through the process of addressing employee behavior and determining if a corrective/disciplinary action is warranted as well as what level/type of action should be imposed.

Having worked in organizations with Collective Bargaining Agreements, I’ve experienced the environment where disciplinary action was a game of connect the dots (Step 1, Step 2, Step 3 ) and also ran in simultaneous-and-parallel streams in accordance with the CBA – Sally Employee could be in Step 1 for a performance issue, Step 3 for attendance, and Step 2 for uniform violations. Oy!

But when we evaluate performance management issues outside of such a highly structured environment and look in the context of, well, ‘the real world’ most of us live in, the freedom to manage through these issues also comes with the responsibility to do so correctly.

It’s often a challenge for new managers, without a step-by-step playbook, to feel comfortable in assessing how to provide corrective counseling. But I’ve found that a 3 x 3 x 3 application can help them sort through this issue.

First, determine which of these THREE behavior categories apply (and truly I’ve found that any issue can be placed in one of these buckets):

Performance issue
Policy/rule violation
Attendance issue

Secondly, determine which of these THREE standards apply:

The issue is progressively getting worse/not improving
A repeat is one time too many
Once is enough

Finally, determine for which of these THREE reasons the employee is exhibiting this behavior:

The employee is unable. They’re unaware of the policy/rule or, if the company dropped the ball, have not been adequately trained and thus can’t perform the task or job.
The employee is unwilling. Perhaps they understand the performance standard (produce XX widgets each day) but simply don’t care to exert the effort to meet the expected standard.
The employee is unmoved. They’re quite possibly inflexible, obstinate, or stubborn. They’re aware of a work rule but, as an employee in this situation once told me, refuse to comply because they “think it’s stupid.”

Plotting these decision points out (matrix style) can assist the manager in determining what action to take. Needless to say, consistency across the work group, department and organization should also be evaluated. And company culture, style and standards all come in to play.

Granted, this places the focus on what one could consider more compliance – HR as opposed to commitment – HR. But let’s face it – as much as we strive to make sure staff members care about the organization/their job and are committed to correcting their behavior for some deep, meaningful personally motivated reason, the reality is that we often DO have employees who are unable, unwilling or unmoved.

Unable, once identified, we can easily remedy.

Unwilling or unmoved? That requires a little something extra.