When we look at today’s most successful organizations, the CHRO is an integral member of the leadership team – and as a unit, they drive business and organization growth. It had not always been this way for HR, in the past (and it still sadly happens in some organizations today), HR was viewed as an administrative back-office function and not as a business partner.
“HR managers are becoming more strategic these days. Rightfully so given than companies led by HR leaders driving strategic people agenda are among those companies identified as best places to work or among those top companies who generate high profits.”
Take for example Twitter – consistently grabbing a spot on Glassdoor’s annual list of best places to work in the tech industry, Twitter’s in HR function promotes work-life balance, causing employees to admire the company culture. HR focuses a lot of time and attention on training managers to lead while maintaining a culture of authenticity, transparency, and accessibility. Twitter is able to maintain the start-up feel while becoming a major tech organization because of the extensive training offered to those in leadership.
Let’s examine key changes HR managers are incorporating into their function as strategic business partners that would help solidify their status as great leaders.
Business Acumen
We had long known that HR managers should know the business to be able to partner with the leaders in value-creating HR programs. HR Managers nowadays don’t just understand and speak the language of the business, most HR managers these days translate business plans into people programs that directly impact the performance of the organization.
One good example here is incorporating a robust onboarding program that improves new hire retention by 82%, thereby directly increasing work productivity by over 70% according to a study conducted by Sapling, an onboarding and HRIS solution for high growth global teams.
People Analytics
HR managers are using people analytics to create programs that are aligned to the needs of employees and contribute to the performance of the organization. They make use of people data to ask the right questions to get the right answers and guide business leaders to make informed decisions about the people and the organization.
One good example of an organization where HR successfully maximized the use of people analytics is Nielsenby creating a predictive model back in 2015. The initial predictive analytics model has several variables including age, gender, tenure, and manager rating. Over time, more variables are added to generate additional input. This exercise provided multiple insights, including the finding that the first year of an employee is crucial to her success in the organization as well as her retention. As a result, within the first-year employee life cycle, each was checked whether they’ve had their critical contact points and follow-through was imminent if it does not happen on time.
The company also found that although getting promoted pushed people to stay, lateral moves were also a strong motivator for talent to remain in the organization.
A significant outcome was that the people with the highest flight risk in the next six months were approached and Nielsen was able to move 40% of them to a new role. Making these lateral moves increased the employees’ chance of retention by 48%.
Culture Champion
A Gallup study shows that among global highest performing organizations, HR managers play a central role in creating and sustaining the culture their organization wants to have. As the stewards and keepers of the culture, HR managers are responsible for inspiring desired employee behaviors and beliefs and in turn, realizing the performance gains of a thriving culture.
Diversity and Inclusion
Great HR managers drive inclusive people agenda and unlock the passion of every member of the organization regardless of age, generation, race, gender, nationality, religion, etc. They leverage diversity in any form to generate different ideas to be able to come up with best practices and the best solution to problems.
Change Agent
As a change agent, HR managers nowadays help the workforce prepare for and better adapt to any potential changes the organization may go through. She also initiates changes for more cohesive company culture and greater productivity.
In CIPDs annual Learning & Development survey showed that driving culture change is a top priority of leadership development activity in organizations. However, change is most of the time a very painful process in the organization and oftentimes, it doesn’t work. The plus side is that HR managers have become expert facilitators of change over time. Their knowledge and expertise in the design of change techniques have grown immensely and they are sharing that knowledge and skills with senior managers, middle managers, and the workforce. HR has developed both its design and implementation capabilities, both of which are key to transformational change.
Accountability
One of the biggest characteristics of great leaders is that they do not pass around blame when things go wrong. They take full responsibility for any kind of failure, individual and team. Highly successful HR managers take full responsibility for their own actions and do not blame anyone else for consequences. They accept circumstances with full dignity and respect and do their best to turn it around with their positivity and perseverance. The best leaders don’t make excuses which makes them trustworthy and full of integrity.
Communications and Marketing
HR managers recognize the need to be great communicators and marketers given that the function delivers programs that should be communicated clearly and sold to both management and employees. HR managers are becoming more adept at delivering clear and concise messages to the whole organization. There is also greater transparency within the HR function and HR managers exercise transparency in their interactions across the organization.
HR managers also recognize that to be able to get the buy-in of the leadership team and the employees in any HR initiative or program, we should learn a thing or two from sellers and marketers. HR initiatives and programs are “products” that need to be “sold” to leaders and employees in the organization.
HR managers to becoming great leaders are still a work in progress. There are those who are already leading their organizations to success, yet, there are still those who have yet to let go of the administrative back-office role of HR.
How about you, where are you in your journey to becoming a great HR leader?
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter!
