Introspecting
the HR Function - 2
n What
the HR Manager needs to do
A small clarification at
the outset – when I say HR Manager in the sub-title, I am not referring to a
person with that designation per se ; rather, the reference is to HR
Functionaries whether described as HR Executive right up to
Director /President – HR.
The previous article in
this series, made a strong plea for not treating employees as a commodity,
fashionably called “talent ; rather
they should be treated for what they truly are,
viz., individuals with each
having his / her own personality,
idiosyncrasies and peculiarities - in other words, individuality. Such individuality must be
recognized, respected and all interventions must take into account this
individual difference within an overall framework of Corporate HR Approach.
How is this to be done
? Let us start from the very
beginning. Let HR managers work out a
meaningful “Induction Programme” for
every new joinee or group of joinees (e.g. management / sales / engineer /
diploma trainees etc.). First and foremost, this induction programme
must have an explicit “element of welcome”
conveying the organisation’s joy at having the new employee join
them. Can you just imagine with what
enthusiasm the employee will go home and describe how he was treated on the
first day ? It can be a wonderful
testimonial for the company.
What happens in
reality today is quite the opposite
: the employee has to negotiate past the
security guard and the “couldn’t care
less” receptionist to reach his boss, only to find that he is in a meeting. He
doesn’t know where he should sit or wait since so one else in the department
knows that he is joining today and thus guide him. Having somehow managed to
pass the time till his boss arrives, he
has to again introduce himself to the boss who barely gives him a cursory
hearing, pushing him on to someone else
(who is, often, junior to the person who is joining) and asks that junior employee to explain “about the work and the department” to the new person !! Thereafter,
a search begins for a table and chair
which are always missing on the first day (!) after which the newcomer simply
lounges here and there and somehow gets through the whole day, eager to get back home.
Am I exaggerating ? Of course, I am exaggerating, but only exaggerating, not imagining ; a large part of what I have recounted keeps
happening in many, if not most
organisations (some of world class
repute, barring some notable exceptions
which are few and far between). I would delighted if some readers of this
article can write to me letting me know the experience of their first day in
their last two jobs -- good or bad. We can
learn from both types of examples.
The welcome should also
include a Welcome Board at the entrance and an
“Announcement Notice or e-mail” about the new person’s joining to all in
the organisation but especially to all his department colleagues as well as HR,
Admin, Accounts and Security Department.
This should be followed by a quick, friendly and efficient conclusion of joining
formalities particularly related to HR / Admin & Accounts. The way to ensure this is by a) making sure that all concerned Departments know in advance
that a person is joining on that day, (see Para on welcome announcement above) b) keep the necessary set of forms ready (one innovative
and new way to ensure so is to send such forms in advance to the new
Joinee and request him/her to bring it duly filled for submission, leaving
blank the sections that are not clear to him), and c)
have him accompanied by a person from HR (or his own department) through each
Department so that he is not at a loss
as to whom he has to approach, where he has to submit the form and where should
he go next.
A small practice that we
follow in our office, I would like to
recommend next. Ours is a small consultancy company with employee strength
varying between 5 to 8, at any given
time. Whenever a new person joins,
he/she is taken out for lunch, on the first day, by an existing employee, at the company’s expense, as we do not have any canteen. This gives him a tremendous sense of camaraderie, helps him make friends with his lunch partner
and relieves him of lunch worries on the first day when, inevitably people don’t bring a lunch box from
home. In bigger organisations where
staff canteens exist, the new joinee
should be accompanied by a pre-designated person so that the newcomer
understands the lunch protocol (e.g. can he take a 2nd helping, does
he have to clear his tray from the table, where can he sit, where should he
wash hands etc.) ; further,
having a known person next to him when he comes into a room full of unknown faces is of great
comfort on his very first day and makes the experience less daunting.
The next major
responsibility for a good and effective HR manager is to connect with all employees.
How is this to be done ? Not difficult,
but certainly requires effort and perseverance. As a start, he must
spend a certain proportion of his time, every day, to move around the premises meeting people in
various departments, functions and locations merely to say “Hi ! How are you ?
Anything we can do for you ? Need any help ?” Just try to visualize the tremendous morale booster
this will be for the average employee when an HR functionary personally
comes to his/her workplace and enquires
after his /her welfare ? Sadly, very few (certainly less than 1 % in
India) HR. managers do this because of their
false and unfortunate sense of importance that they are “Chamber Kings” and it is the troubled employee who must come
to them and not vice versa. Also they
derive a vicarious pleasure in keeping such employees (who come to meet them)
waiting outside their room to demonstrate how busy they are and how they cannot
be troubled by petty issues. This is a
grave mistake. First of all, keeping
someone waiting does not demonstrate your importance; it merely exposes your rude and crude
behavior. Secondly, your going up to the employee instead of
wanting him to come to you does not lessen your importance ; rather it
increases your approachability and visibility and gives you an inkling of
brewing problems much faster and firsthand than otherwise.
To sum up, HR managers must leave their rooms and go where
the action is – be it the factory
shop floor, various departments
/sections in the HO building, Branches,
Warehouses, business workplaces, and
such like. How much time should be
spent on such visits ? Very difficult to
give some exact number but roughly speaking our thumb rule is at least 1/3rd of your time over a week must be at the
employees’ workplace, not your room or
desk.
A natural question here
might be, if I spend so much time
outside my department/desk, how will I
do my work ? Good question, because it leads to the more important
question - what is your work after all ? Is it your job to sit in your room to await
the MD or your Boss’s call or is it your responsibility to see that your
employees are happy and, if they do have
a problem, you should find out about it
at the earliest and solve it at the first instance before it grows and boils
over into a complaint or escalates into
a major grievance ? Think about this
question and you will know why it is important for you to move out of your
comfort zone into the scene of action.
The 3rd major area of responsibility for the HR
Manager is to “sense what people are
feeling” even before it is explicitly
expressed, especially in the
following cases :
a)
Possible
reaction to certain policy changes under contemplation (new incentive scheme,
working condition changes, large number
of impending transfers, closing down of some section or unit etc.)
b)
Effect
on Morale when some business downturn has been forecast or has been seen for
sometime
c)
Persisting
power cuts or RM procurement difficulties owing to problems at suppliers’ end
d)
Political and /or environmental issues/ concerns of local
populace which is likely to affect operations and may even lead to partial
closure
e)
Brewing
confrontation between management and union affecting work and work atmosphere
f)
Change
in top management or even ownership that leads to speculation about “what next
and what is going to happen ?”
How can this be done, this
sensing in advance “the mood and
thinking of the employees ?” First
and foremost, the moving around and
regular meeting with employees at their workplace will give you a credibility
that will allow people to confide in you or even approach you with
questions. Indeed, their
very questions can be pointers to their thinking.
Secondly, your willingness to listen and your ability
to pick up non-verbal cues (facial expression, tone and tenor of their
questions, their smiles or the absence
of it) will give you a good idea of “which way the wind is blowing”
Having sensed what is the
likely mood and thinking on any given issue or day, the
next task of the HR Manager is to be pro-active and take advance corrective
action so that the employees'
“worries” are properly addressed
and in good time. This essentially
involves continuous, clear and credible
communication, be it through notices or
letters, small group discussions, formal
meetings or informal chats with key
opinion makers in each group and location.
Such credibility in
communication only comes if employees trust you and they will only trust you if
a) they know you (which
they will not, if you keep yourself confined
to your room and desk) and
b) you have a good past
record of being trustworthy.
This can only happen if you
have moved frequently and regularly amongst them, have made genuine efforts to understand their
problems and made sincere efforts to solve them
-- bringing us back to the
initial recommendation of HR managers leaving their rooms/desks to spend at
least 1/3rd of their time with the employees at the latter’s workplace.
The fourth area I would
like to emphasize is “workplace
safety”. Tragically, this is not seen or acknowledged as an HR
responsibility – in India it has more of
an Admin or, at best,
an IR connotation, a rather
mundane and “day-to-day” matter with
which the more esoteric tribe of MBA –
trained HR managers cannot dirty their
hands. This is a great pity because
nothing could be farther from the truth.
If you cannot assure “workplace
safety”, no amount of glass and granite
and air-conditioning is going to create
“good ambience and pleasant working conditions”. So what exactly am I referring to ? Are there slippery Floors ? Is the Exit passage always kept free so that
in case of Fire or any other crises people can exit quickly (the recent cases
of stampede at temples and public places will immediately tell you why this is
important) ? Is the earthing proper on
all electrical equipment ? Are there any
bare, un-terminated “electrical
wires” hanging around, to cause “electrical short-circuits” and the resultant fire (a common occurrence
in corporate India) ? Are any hazardous materials being stored on
the premises and, if so, what precautions
have been taken to ensure protection to people working there ? Are there any inflammable materials like LPG
Cylinders, Petrol / Kerosene items etc.
being stored in non – permissible places (recall the ghastly AMRI Hospital Fire
in October 2011 in Kolkata) ? Is the path
to Fire Fighting equipment and electrical switchboards free and without any encumbrance
so that these items can be accessed instantly when required ? There are many more such small things to be
attended to and in the view of this writer, squarely the responsibility of the
HR manager that things are absolutely OK on this front, even though it may also be someone else’s
job/task to do the actual checking and correction. Once again,
the way
such “workplace safety” can be
ensured is to have regular and frequent
“audit walks” around the premises (which means not merely the HO
Building where most HR managers sit but also the factories, branches and
warehouses).
Next, the HR manager must tackle an area that he is
routinely accused of being ignorant of :
viz. How the company’s business
runs. Every HR workshop and seminar
these days espouses the need for HR to integrate itself into the business of
the company. Unfortunately, none of them give any practical or workable
recommendation as to how exactly this is to be done. Let me venture to do so.
First and foremost, the HR manager must make an honest effort to
learn – he must go to the Accounts Department
and request the MIS head or the VP Finance
to explain to him what each of the Monthly statements means. Many of them are self-evident but some contain terminologies
or “ratios” that the HR manager may not understand
on his own. Similarly, he must go to the Marketing Head and request
for a briefing on the nature of the “Product – Market” Matrix,
the profile of the company’s customers,
the identity, size and nature of competition, the company’s USP as well as its weak
areas. In the same spirit, he must visit the factories for an
understanding of the production process,
what are the major bottlenecks,
what are the company’s technological advantages or shortcomings, what are the employee issues, how is the absenteeism and safety record and
suchlike ?
This is easier said than
done because when an HR manager embarks on this journey, he is,
in effect, publicly stating that he “doesn’t
understand” these things. In an organizational context, this requires a great deal of courage and this
the HR manager must muster. At the same time, an honest declaration of
ignorance (of knowledge) is not any commentary on the person’s intelligence
and, in fact, he will earn the respect of
colleagues for his desire to learn and “understand the business”. So, my unhesitant recommendation to HR
managers is : if you do not understand
any part of your company’s business,
admit so and unashamedly ask to be educated on what they are.
You will not only gain knowledge but also respect and, flowing from
that, a great degree of self-confidence
that will always stand you in good stead.
The major gain from such an
effort will not merely be “improved understanding of the business” but even more important, a much
better and sharper understanding of how HR can contribute to improve the functioning
through HR interventions be it by way of more focused training, better discipline enforcement, faster recruitment, temporary contractual hiring etc.
To sum up, the following are the broad areas that the HR
manager must embark upon as part of his action plan to become more effective :
1.
Design
and implement a structured and well – thought out induction programme for new employees that is not
merely an “introduction programme” but a
series of steps that help ease the new employee into the organisation in a way
that makes him confortable and free from the
“rough edges” of adjustment in a
new work environment.
2.
Spend
a certain minimum time “outside” his room/department, personally meeting employees at all levels
and locations - HO, factory, branch or
warehouse to establish a connect with them, get authentic and firsthand
feedback of how employees are feeling or what is agitating them
3.
Take
pro-active action on issues that are top of the mind for employees and
particularly make sure that issues that are agitating them or worrying them are
properly addressed by continuous and well-designed communication in various
forms – written, oral, small group
discussions, or town hall meetings
4.
Take
personal charge of workplace
safety and review the same regularly.
Take help of experts where necessary but ensure personally that the required audits
are taking place, the corrections or
deficiencies pointed out have, indeed, been
addressed. The test of course, is the number of accident-free man-hours you
can log up. The bigger the number, the
better. Once again, this is not merely an exercise for HO or the
HR manager’s location but it is applicable throughout the organisation.
5.
Finally, take concrete steps to integrate yourself
into the business by first understanding what it is all about. This can only be done by an honest attempt to
“learn” from each major activity, as to how they function and
what they expect or want from HR.
As a professional, try to be known for your approachability,
not by your exclusivity. Try to enlarge your accountability, not your empire, Aim to increase your influence, not your
power or authority. This is what will
help you graduate from a manager to a leader.
Mumbai
October 20,
2013
