Role of HR in Performance Management

What would happen if HR were responsible for doing apprasials for the employees? Wouldn´t it be great? The role of the HR function increases in its importance tenfold, the managers can twindle their thumbs doing as little as possible when it comes to managing their own people, and when the proverbial mass hits the fan - blame HR for all the wrong-doing starting with the Tower of Babel and finishing with the Greek mishaps of days not so far ago.

A couple of months ago I did my World at Work certification in Performance Management. Guess what? Suggested HR involvement is minimal. Undoubtedly, its role is crucial in:

• designing the process
• setting the framework (communicating the policies, deadlines, key principles, educating employees, line managers and the senior executives)
• ensuring compliance and managing complaints
• industry benchmarking
• tying performance management to remuneration and other people related fields (Talent Management, i.e. how your rankings impact your promotions or development opportunities, such as rotations, leadership development, international options, etc.; Learning and Development, i.e. the learning interventions required to close the identified developmental gaps as an outcome of your performance discussions)
• communicating the outcomes of each perofrmance management cycle to the relevant stakeholder groups including the employees (maintaining confidentiality, but still being able to provide the big picture, so that the employees can feel the tangible impact of the process on their everyday worklife)
• adjusting and adapting the process in case faults are identified
• making sure the new employees are appropriately onboarded with regards to the performance management process

However, it is the line that must do the work. Then they feel empowered. Then there is more trust between them and the employees. Then there is a learning curve. You cannot teach people to manage others by giving them lectures. Until you have had a tough performance conversation, until you have fired someone for underperformance, until you have coached someone who is on a performance management plan, you will struggle to grasp the true meaning of managing people. Trust your managers. Empower them!

Those who suggest firing "non-key" people (instead of managing their performance )underestimate three aspects:

• morale within the company (how do you think the "key" people feel about their colleagues losing their jobs? also, i would not like to have my assistants changing every six months)
• legislation - in many countries you will be taken to court if you are laying off and hiring people at the same time
• unions (imagine your 3-people logistics department joins the Transport Barganing Council, and then in case you make a decision to lay them off, you will have to defend that decision on a country level, faced with the industry, threatening stalling your logistics operations whatsoever)

There is a fine line between owing the process and executing it. There is a large gray area in between. There are people who will take the personal advantage of that gray area unless you get the process right.

Job Hunting or Job Begging?

Still being under the impression of the session delivered by Mr Porot this afternoon, I would like to share some general considerations on the topic of job searching, hunting, and sniffing. Basically, the dry remainder of an eight-hour session is that:

• you need to define (for yourself in the first place, because it might turn out to be terribly hard) what you really love. It means what makes you genuinely happy, why you wake up singing you favorite tunes and why you don't really need to smell coffee in the morning, because you are already jumping and kicking, impatient to get back to the colleagues, projects and admin issues. Hmmm... on the issue of coffee I stay to be corrected...
• think, what you are bloody good at. Now, this is now a tricky question - it is quite serious and dangerous, because many people confuse the two and are trying to make believe that what they would like to do is what they do best. The Tarzan interviewing technique (called so because you need to swing from "rope" to "rope" trying to find out what is the specific skill that differentiates you from the rest of the crowd of bloodthirsty job seekers) proved to be very efficient, however, only if you know how to use it right.
• marry the two concepts (like + can) together and the most difficult part of the job search process is done.

Let me quote something from my favorite book (one of the most philosophical and difficult for understanding and interpretation pieces - if you think I'm mad saying that, read it again!), Alice in Wonderland:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?", Alice asks.

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where –" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

“– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Target (or focus) is another component of successful job search. If you are unsure of where you want this path of life to take you, most likely you will not get there, but will wander in the darkness, prone to labor market whips and euro fluctuations. Be specific, and your chances to land a dream job will shoot through the roof. Rules of flirting apply: an easy target is not that enticing.

I would question the statement that you should not send your CV (or resume) at all, but I am talking from my position of an HR professional here. I can understand the frustration of many, who send hundreds of e-mails to various HR people and never hear back. Challenge: is your approach right? After all, that is the right door to knock on (maybe not the most efficient in certain situations), but it is my accountability as a manager of human capital in a company to make sure that we get the best resources in. I even felt a little angry how HR was portrayed as a function and I wish to state that not all HR departments are useless paper shifters! More thoughts on the topic in my earlier posting: http://hrboutique.blogspot.com/2010/05/laundromat.html.

Leveraging networks is another key in securing a job and I would agree that those should be used for information mainly. Asking for too much favors will erode the value of a connection (unless you give sufficiently back) and also you might be putting the other person in a difficult situation, especially if you are using a personal relationship. Many of your friends have a limited view on you as a professional and often the view is skewed. If you are not doing well in the job they helped you to get, it will backfire at them as well.

Finally, what will make you a success in life:

• 50% - savoir etre: self-management skills - adjectives
• 35% - savoir faire: transferable skills/competencies - verbs
• 15% - savoir: knowledge - nouns 

This provides a fresh perspective on what one should be focusing on. Knowledge is not valued as much as it used to be even 10-20 years ago, and the emphasis is shifting towards emotional intelligence and the softer side of management, which immensely raises the profile of HR as a function responsible for building the organizational leadership capability and creating the learning culture.

Tale of Two Assets

Think how much information there is in the company about it's building, transactions, pumps, patches of land or whatever else a company might own. Also, they claim that they "own" their employees as stated in the intellectual property clause of the contract. Fine, if you "own" someone, you should have an operating instruction, technical note or some other piece of paper you might consider sufficient to describe the human capital you have at your disposal. Hypocrisy of the situation is captured in the phrase I chose to put in the description of my blog, "If people are our greatest assets, why don't we put them on the balance sheet"?

This video gives a quite adequate representation of the situation most firms face nowadays. The industrialism is deeply ingrained in many managerial minds, still stuck in 1920s when anyone was replaceable and had a tag attached. Well, newsflash - if you want to consider someone "corporate property", there must be respective cashflows and trackable records of all aspects of the organizational life: inception and birth (i.e. attraction and recruitment), schooling (includes all training, most valuable - on the job, mentoring and coaching), maturation (delivery), recreation (what drives the employee apart from the insatiable desire to show up at the fluorescent office every day, what are the interests outside of the corporate routine?), personal finance (salary, bonuses, other elements of remuneration), intellectual growth (how much information does the employee get, how does s/he gets acknowledged, what are the change aspects in the job, challenges), and finally - self-actualization (what are the aspirations, how can the company get the employee to the maximum potential level in as little time as possible, what does the firm need to do to keep him or her happy as a clam?) Check out the short video about Sammy and Barry and try to answer a couple of questions below - this can be an exciting discussion!

• why is it difficult to keep track of "human capital"? we seem not to have any issues with other organizational assets.
• what is so special about the shift from industrial imperative to information age framework? how does that reflect on HR processes overall? how far are we on the journey? what are the greatest enablers and barriers?
• what is the role of the employees in facilitating the shift to the new model?

Phew - I feel like a ferocious university professor, making poor students toil over a die hard case study. Relax! As one of our professors says, "Accounting is sexy, Accounting is fun."