Eliminate Fluff within HR

Starting with administration, comp&ben, talent acquisition, talent management, - to talent development and retention, and organizational development are all dealt by the HR function of an organization. HR is focused on internal matters like employee engagement, empowerment, diversity and managing cultural issues. Larger companies might have clear distinctive Heads working on each of these elements separately, while the smaller ones might have a single HR team performing all together.

While in the HR function, these tasks seem of high importance and relevance; however from a business perspective HR always tends to get hit upon with words like “misaligned” and “process-oriented generalists”. Rarely does HR consider itself as a sounding board and trusted partner to the business. Where does the gap lie?

Is it because of HR’s ignorance about its perceived “irrelevant existence”? No that’s not the case, because we all (who is reading this post) as HR executives/managers/leaders understand this irrelevance quite well and have felt the pinch in near past. Then what can the gap be? Where do we get disjointed with business?

A blog from CiteHR quoted about HR function getting extinct and HR-strategic partner role being too important to be left to someone with an HR background. Another interesting HBR blog noted that the few CHRO’s who have fared well in their roles by becoming partners of the business, have all once worked in line operation roles such as sales, services, or manufacturing—or in finance. Merely because they understand the business inside-out.

The answer lies in “eliminating fluff” that we usually get trapped in. By “fluff” I mean making the BAU (business as usual) tasks occupy more than 90-95% of our job roles. Limiting to administrative tasks, and losing focus from thinking strategies to align with the business. For example, an L&D team within HR can do wonders in employee development, if it understands the business and its pain-areas and customize solutions to fill gaps. Working like consulting partners with the business leaders, collaboratively taking decisions of employee learning will not only generate training programs that are relevant but also well aligned to business needs.