The quest and clamor to declare New Years’ goals is here. For those of us who have chosen the HR profession, headwinds will continue with needs for:
- Organizations to attract, acquire, onboard, engage, retain, and develop talented individuals to drive organizational performance; and
- People to effectively collaborate, team, innovate, lead and manage, resolve challenges, bring new products and services to market with greater efficacy, and constructively contribute to workplaces laden with respect, accountability, interaction safety, and rewarded performance.
HR’s demands continue…
We see three (3) crucial goals for HR to spur organizational performance and wellbeing to elicit HR’s reputational acclaim:
1) Elevate Psychic Satisfaction & Engagement at every employee level;
2) Transform HR from a Cost Center to Value Creator;
3) Accelerate HR’s Potential & Exponential Organizational Value; and
4) Model & Nurture Continual Self-Assessment, Development, and Care.
Elevate Psychic Satisfaction & Engagement
Assess and identify where and when your workforce experiences and feels interactively safe and valued to effect higher engagement, performance, retention, collaboration, and innovation… the lifeblood of every organization. If you lack the time, expertise, objectivity, or organizational trust, you may want to partner with an objective third party consultant to assess the true state of your organization’s trust and engagement as well as to map your journey on this critical foundation for organizational wellbeing.
Transform HR Out of Cost Center Mode into Organizational Value Creator
Start by revisiting your organizational strategy, goals, desired culture, and values to sleuth out key opportunities for HR to drive greater value and impact then explore leaders’ perspectives to gain early buy-in. Next, create a shared mindset shift with your HR team. Fundamentally, the work of HR is to create and manage desired culture while building organizational capacity and performance. With clear sight (no blinders allowed!), answer:
- To what degree are your HR and OD frameworks aligned with and supporting the strategy, goals, needed culture, and values?
- What few HR-based measures are truly indicative of performance and value growth behind which leaders will stand?
- How can HR strengthen its strategic and operational acumen, executive connections and presence, and widespread organizational trust of its function?
- How can HR influence and effect trusted and insightful organizational communication to a higher degree?
Accelerate HR’s Potential & Exponential Organizational Value (2X – 6X)
- How are you continually assessing opportunities, readiness, change management needs, and implementation effectiveness to exponentially accelerate organizational performance and value to effect strategy and goals, going from good to great and then from great to exceptional?
- Culture and values management require non-stop, focused effort. How is HR continuing to shape, educate, celebrate, and recalibrate culture to maintain your organization’s most valuable competitive advantage?
- To what degree is your HR team engaged, aligned, and collaborating to integrate your HR and OD frameworks?
- How successful has HR been in developing strong leader alliances to win on talent acquisition, engagement, performance, and retention challenges?
Model & Nurture Continual Self-Assessment, Development, and Care
- From thoughtful assessment of your existing Performance Management system and tools, to what degree has HR ensured a solid orientation toward appreciative feedback and development vs critical focus?
- To what degree does your managerial and leadership competence excel in leading crucial conversations with direct reports? Do they start and end with what the individual does well, ensure truthful and concise statements about what needs to be developed and what success looks like, inquire about the individual’s perspective, and share what resources/support are available for the individual to succeed or to graceful exit if the challenge is insurmountable?
- How effective are HR team discussions about team and individual strengths, benefits and opportunities for development, and in creation of your team’s roadmap for this journey? To what degree do all members of the team feel interactively safe for the good of the team as well as for their individual wellbeing and performance? When have you last assessed and implemented opportunities to develop mentorships both within the HR team as well as with adept leaders outside of HR?
By Regan MacBain Traub & Kawel LauBach | Partners, The Human Resource Consortium