Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Strategic HR Leadership Certificate, Strategic HR Leadership Certificate -…
Strategic HR Leadership Certificate
HR Management
Module 1 – Navigating to the Top of HR
Lesson 1 – Setting Your Professional Direction
Structure your career to launch you into an HR leadership position
Examine yourself.
Who are you?
8 career anchors
Once you have a clearer idea of who you are and what motivates you, it’s time to consider what will distinguish you from the pack: your
functional specialty
Size of the organization and industry (combinations)
Lesson 2 – What’s Expected of a CHRO
Transactional (manager HR functions) vs. transformational CHRO (partner with CEO to transform the business, start in small scale, don't force it). Understand CEO expectations.
4 transactional skills of CHRO
1) Operations and Compliance Expert (expertise in HR Ops)
2) Wise Confidant (discretion and listening/soundboarding, 360 role)
3) EE Champion (balance)
4) Report to the board (main programs, risks)
Lesson 3 – Future-Proofing Your Career
Five risks
Your industry or company is in decline (look for growth)
Your skill set is in decline (stay relevant, leadership changes)
You have become overspecialized (don't get stuck)
You’ve been promoted too quickly (be patient, careful with talent portability)
Your country has limited opportunities (economic factors)
Three strategies to insulate from risks
Tactic 1: Be ready for Plan B (consider industry, company, check around)
Tactic 2: Build your network (Is who you know, they know, and knows you). Improve relationships @ human level
Tactic 3: Build your brand (speak a events, write aticles, EXE presence)
Lesson 4 – The Roles Leaders Play
Time management techniques
For shifting tasks (meditate, move, track where you are and do next)
Folklore vs. facts
Mintzberg's Leadership Hats (
Leader hat
,
Linking hat
,
Figurehead hat
)
Module 2 – HR Leadership Activities
Lesson 1 – Championing Culture and Change
Your role in initiating change: don't just support change, be proactive, from
reactive
to
suggester
to
initiator
How to go about implementing change: culture and change are linked, understand what culture acutally is. The challenge is to establish the desired behaviors in perpetuity. Use all hats (
Leader hat
,
Linking hat
,
Figurehead hat
)
4 specific tools for effective culture change: 1) hire or fire 2) training and development 3) rewards and incentives (understand and map promoters/detractors 4) banging heads together (force confrontation)
HR programs tend to lack action
. It takes skill and credibility :warning:
Lesson 2 – Being a Credible Activist and Strategic Positioner
Credible activism:
requires 1) have an opinion based on understanding 2) express your informed opinion (based on numbers, evidence and trust)
Credible activism (the way your org views/responds to YOU) linked to strategic positioning (leverages the credibility you've earned into action): important to see the BIG Picture (read, and talk to leaders). Take and active interest in the business ("HR is not about HR...")
The challenge
is to understand an apply
Also
think strategically
to prioritize (recognize them!)
Ways to
think strategically
(about HR Function and my role): 1) apply strategic thinking 2) prioritize 3) bend the rules 4) do things differently
Lesson 3 – Navigating Paradox
What it means to be a paradox navigator: once exposed, navigate it (e.g. "less is more")
Four pragmatic aspects of navigating paradox
1) Reciprocal causality
(determinism): help overcome disagreements (e.g. performance vs. engagement)
2) Appreciating nuance:
see them by talking about the. Is a process, not a rule (e.g. expense report case)
3) Paradox rules:
can't have rules for everyting (Rule based vs. Principle based)
4) Tension between what's good for business and good for people:
balance them and find the sweet spot
Dealing with Paradox:
evaluate impact, value alignment, and costly side effects of not treating people well
Module 3 – Managing the Teams of the Future
Lesson 1 – Managing Power Dynamics in a Decentralized HR Function
The concept of Accountability Hiearchy:
[who does what (tasks), who is accountable for what (responsability)], who decides what (power) | [technical issues]
The trouble with power:
none wants to talk directly about power (best solution vs. best solution for "them"). 1st step is to manage centralization vs. decentralization
Regions vs. Headquarters:
ensure the role of central HR clearly and soon (tension). When away from HQ, loyalties shift towards local unit
Building close ties with Headquarters:
retain control of local HR (limit authority in a smart way). Assess possible Org. Structures maintaininb a balance (Informally, and formally)
Using a RACI chart:
blend with Paradox navigator skills
Keeping in touch:
HQ out of touch is the biggest complaint. HQ needs to invest time with regions (seek understanding and relationship formally and informally)
Power, use it or lose it:
bring prestige and authority to the table
Lesson 2 – Managing Virtual Teams
Advantages of F2F work:
faster/clearer communication, overhear conversations, informal Sr. Leadership network. Overall business strategy is the biggest concern
Recruitment and compensation strategy:
two key challenges, measuring talent and cost of talent (global pay scale)
Onboarding:
administrative vs. social-productive side (both need to be re-examined)
Training and development:
easy to manage and enhances learning independence (plan diligently and thoroughly)
Performance management:
legitimate concern that can be addressed with judging output (preferred) and/or monitoring
-
Monitoring work:
distasteful but has to be done. Use a daily stand-up meeting
Hybrid work environments:
ask yourself about the sense of membership
Tools for virtual Teams:
leverage on them and promote virtual spontaneity
Lesson 3 – Managing Global Teams
Hofstede's 6 Dimensions of National Culture
High power distance versus low power distance:
determines how you interact with authority (manage responses and adapt)
Individualism versus collectivism:
match HR programs to match local culture (check paradoxes)
Masculinity versus femininity:
be ready to deal with cultures in both ends (avoid value judgements
High uncertainty avoidance versus low uncertainty avoidance:
be sensitive to emotions
Long- versus short-term orientation:
deals with tradition vs. pragmatism
Indulgence versus restraint:
fun vs. duties and responsibilities
Why consider cultural differences:
do not prescribe stereotypes (they are a thinking tool)
Adapting to local conditions vs. global consistency:
these differences become more dramatic when dealing with different countries scattered around the Globe. Distinguish from Core vs. Non-Core elements (ask questions)
Get informed:
understand current events. Get interested and read newspapers demonstrate care
Dilemma Reconciliation
Lesson 4 – Managing People Outside the Organization
"The team isn't just the Team, it's everyone who works for the Team".
Using consultants:
tension between what's good for the client vs. consultant. Nevertheless, consultants remain important
Tactics for maximizing the value of consultants:
be in charge, ask for alternatives, ask for clarity, and trust your instincts
-
Choosing a consulting firm:
consultants tend to rotate. There are benefits on choosing a large firm (credibility, quality, size of project)
Outsourcing:
they can do most HR Functions and save cost
Working with tech vendors:
they're becoming common partners in providing tools and data (have a backup plan)
Using Gig workers:
they're a large talent pool, bring effectiveness, and can improve low-value tasks (and well defined)
Risk of using Gig workers:
assess legal risks (co-employment), treatment (second class citizens), manage loss of knowledge (continuity management)
Mini MBA
Module 1 – Competitive Analysis and the Organization
Lesson 1 – Introduction to Strategy
What is Strategy?
A coherent, unifying theme that gives direction and purpose to actions and decision-making
Communication of Strategy:
done with Mission Statement, Values or principles statement, Vision statement, or Strategy statement
Strategic Management:
Conceptualization and implementation of initiatives that will make and organization competitive (involves industry and internal analysis)
Strategic Fit:
the degree to which and organization align its competencies and resources to the industry environment (external and internal forces)
Contingency Theory:
no best way to doing things, and everything is context-dependent (dynamic vs. stable industry approach)
Corporate vs. Business Strategy:
Where (Corporate Strategy) to How (Business Strategy, static or dynamic dimensions) do we compete
Value Creation:
How? To Whom? Stakeholders or Shareholders. Can be done in Profitability or Accounting
To gauge org performance:
translate goals into performane targets, and monitor them. Goals need to be actionable, and relevant
Lesson 2 – Internal Analysis and Competitiveness
For
long-term strategy
, is better to focus on resources and capabilities (as opposed to external environment)
Resources:
Resources are productive assets, different from capabilities (what we can do with resources). You can build or buy capabilities
Tangible Resources:
easy to identify (financial and physical). You can create additional value by optimizing their use
Intangible Resources:
more valuable than tangible resources (e.g. brands, patents, copyrights, relationships)
Human Resources:
Skills/know-how, Org culture, collaboration capabilities
Capabilities:
Distinctive vs. Core. For systematic view do a functional analysis or Value chain analysis (Primary vs Secondary activities - Porter Analysis)
Establishing a Competitive Advantage:
identify/analyze both strengths and weaknesses
Sustaining a Competitive Advantage:
barriers to imitation/substitution must exist
Lesson 3 – External Environment and Competitiveness
External Environement: can be costly to monitor this
Defining industries boundaries: Org's industry (broad sectors) vs. Market (specific products)
Industry Attractiveness with Porter's 5 forces
Module 2 – Strategy Planning and Implementation
Lesson 1 – Strategic Planning vs. Emergent Strategies
Reality is too complex to allow perfect execution (behavioral element is relevant)
Strategic formulation cannot be separated from implementation (are interdependent)
Strategists cannot be separated from the object of strategy
During implementation, gaps are filled and strategy adjusted
The value of strategic planning:
SP is a systemized continous analytical approach (tool: Statements assessement)
Strategic Planning as Strategic Programming*:
the artiuclaiton or elaboration of strategies
Understanding Emergent strategies:
significant parts of the strategy emerge in opportunistic and messy ways (there are cognitive, physical, and process limitations)
Strategy as an incremental Process:
requires taking small steps, an adaptive approach, spontaneity, and flexibility. Decentralize, trust and empower
Lesson 2 – Balanced Scorecards
Strategy mapping:
guides thinking, view strategy in a cohesive, integrated, systematic way
Balanced Scorecard:
think as a process (starts with the ideal state) , not a categorization exercise. Gets a balanced view for performance (holistic system). Is a tool to make sense of complex issues, understand principal factors and guide us to ask the right questions
Applying the Balanced Scorecard:
Mobil example with non-gasoline products
Financial perspective:
leverages on revenue growth and productivity (results vs. growth strategies)
Customer Perspective:
considers customer value proposition** (mix of products, internal processes and differentiators
Internal Processes Perspective:
captures critical activities
Learning and Growth Perspective:
defines core competencies and skills, culture and enable alignment of HR and IT with the strategy
Cause-and-effect relations in Strategy Map:
objectives in the lower perspective drive the success in the higher ones. With a balance scorecard, gaps in the lower level can be detected
Module 3 – Governance and Decision-Making
Lesson 1 – Corporate Governance and Stakeholder Engagement
Value creation, but for Whom?:
two major approaches, stakeholder** and shareholder approaches (firece debate on preference). Both share a commong ecosystem and want a sustainable future
What is Corporate Governance?:
see OECD definition. Three parts, 1) Distribution of rights and responsibilities 2) Different participants in the organization 3) Rules and procedures for decision-making. Ensures that decision-making by individuals is aligned with the objectives and interests of the organization and its stakeholders
Stakeholder Identification:
two types of stakeholders. Primary (direct stakeholders), where organization does business with directly (e.g. investors, employees, customers, suppliers, and business and local communities). Secondary (indirect stakeholders), parties affected by the organization but that themselves cannot affect the organization directly (e.g competitors, labor unions).
Stakeholder Analysis and Engagement:
communicate, understand, and get to know them. Stakeholder engagement is important as it gives companies social licenses
The need for Coordination and Cooperation:
2 problems to address (agency problems),
1) A cooperation problem
, concerning aligning the interests of individuals who have divergent goals,
2) A coordination problem
, concerning harmonizing different activities of individuals in organizations
Agency Problems and Goal Misalignment:
the problem is about ensuring that the agent acts in the principal’s interest. The potential of goal misalignment between actors within the organization is relevant for HR (especially when it comes wiht compensation). Unclear Goal Alignment may lead to Goal Fragmentation, Conflicting Subgoals.
Key HR Goal:
Reduce agency problems :warning:
Transaction Costs and Agency Costs:
Transaction Cost
, is the cost involved in making an exchange, and why bureaucracies are justified (e.g. Outsource HR?).
Agency Costs
are the costs of structuring, monitoring, and bonding a set of contracts among agents with conflicting interests
Managing Goal Alignment:
to achieve goal alignment within organizations, management has various mechanisms available (from hard to soft), 1) Control mechanisms, 2) Performance incentives, 3) Shared values, 4) Persuasion
Managing Coordination:
the desire to cooperate is not enough to ensure that organizational members integrate their efforts. It requires 1) Rules and directives 2) Mutual adjustment 3) Routines and processes (!)
Lesson 2 – Business Ethics
Ethics can be distinguished from values in that ethics concern how a moral person should behave
Advantages of Ethical Behaviour:
1) Building customer loyalty 2) Retaining good employees 3) Retaining good employees 4) Avoiding legal problems
Ethical Framework:
having a coherent and comprehensive ethical framework and a strong complementary organizational culture is an important part of an organization’s strategy. The final choice must be consistent with the organization’s goals, culture, and value system as well as those of the individual decision makers
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):
establishes responsible behavior within an organization, its objectives, values and competencies, and the interest of stakeholders. Helps sustainability, Reputation, and Legitimacy
Social Responsibility as an Integrated Organizational Effort:
organizations must develop coherent and comprehensive CSR strategies (start with an inventory). CSR activities are typically divided among three arenas of practice, 1) Focusing on philanthropy 2) Improving operational effectiveness, and 3) Transforming the business model
Developing an Integrated CSR Portfolio:
Once the various CSR initiatives have been inventoried, they can be added to a coherent portfolio by 1) Pruning and Aligning Programs Within Arenas 2) Developing metrics to gauge performance, and 3) Developing an interdisciplinary CSR strategy
Module 4 – Digital & Global Business
Lesson 1 – Competitiveness in International Business
Patters of Internatinoalization:
Our lives are heavily influenced by globalization and the effects of internationalization that we hardly notice it anymore (Multidomestic vs. Global Industries)
National Influences on Competitiveness:
two types of resources and capabilities relevant to a firm when establishing a competitive advantage, Country and Company-based resources in order to gain a Comparative Advantage
National Influences on Competitiveness:
two types of resources and capabilities relevant to a firm when establishing a competitive advantage, Country and Company-based resources in order to gain a Comparative Advantage
Impact of National Resource Conditions on International Strategy:
two types of strategic decision-making in international business, 1) Where to locate production and, 2) How to enter a foreign market
Multinational Strategies:
the international scope of doing business abroad, may by itself also be a source of competitive advantage
Benefits of a Global Strategy:
Costs benefits of scale and replications, Serving global customers, Exploiting national resources, Learning benefits, and Competing strategically
The Need for National Differentiation:
every nation represents a unique combination of various distinctive characteristics. The CAGE Distance framework of broad categories can serve as a starting point for exploring the battlefield of international expansion
Reconciling Global Integration with National Adaptation:
Choices about internationalization strategy should be viewed as a tradeoff between the benefits of global integration and national adaptation
Implementing Transnational Strategy:
the key challenge remains reconciling global integration with national responsiveness and differentiation
Lesson 2 – Developments Impacting Strategic Management
From Digitization to Digital Transformation:
Digitization is the process of converting noisy, analog information into digital data. Digital transformation is a systems-level restructuring of the economy, institutions, and society as a whole that occurs through digital technology diffusion.
Why Does Digital Transformation Matter?:
ability to adapt quickly has become critical. Four key ways you can help your organization support employees during a digital transformation, 1) Put People First 2) Focus on Soft Skills 3) Fostering Innovative Leadership, and 4) Make use of insights from data.
"Data without insights is trivial, and insights without action are pointless."
For tech giants, it is not only the functionality of their technology, nor simply the engineering skills of their scientists, but their data-driven cultures, supporting and enabling employees, and embedding data-driven decision-making in their organizations
Five important lessons on success in a digital era
Lesson 1:
Know what your business strategy is before investing in digital transformation
Lesson 2:
Leverage insiders instead of bringing in outsiders
Lesson 3:
Include your customers when designing to improve their experience
Lesson 4:
Acknowledge employees’ fear of being replaced
Lesson 5:
Embrace agile decision-making culture
New Directions in Strategic Thinking:
digital transformation is also changing how we think about strategy. Three strategic management approaches are in flux:
1. Complex Sources of Competitive Advantage:
Organizations need to continuously start new strategic initiatives, building and exploiting many short-term competitive advantages simultaneously
2. Managing Options and Scenario Planning:
the main idea was to treat every scenario as a real option. Thus, they were able to flexibly and adaptively scale up resource commitment
3. Redesigning Organizations:
there has also been significant change to our understanding of strategic fit. This has primarily come as a result of two important concepts, Complementarity and Complexity
HR Strategy
Module 1 – HR Strategy Overview
Lesson 1 – Introduction to HR Strategy
The purpose of an HR strategy is to offer a guide for how the human capital (people) of an organization will achieve its business goals. Lays out WHAT HR will do and WHY.
Different Focuses of HR Strategy:
HR strategy can look very different depending on the organization’s needs. It can be simplistic (overarching plan - must) or detailed (specific strategies for the areas EXE by COE & HRBPS - optional)
The
steps to develop and execute HR strategy
are relatively consistent. The five steps are:
Step 1: Understand the Business Strategy and Organizational Goals:
What is the business trying to do (business outcomes, broader landscape)?
We need to deeply understand both the external/internal organizational world that will impact HR strategies
Step 2: Determine How the Human Capital of the Company is Connected to Those Goals:
answer the question,
“How will people help the organization achieve its goals?”
. This is the heart of :<3: the HR strategy
The focus of these first two steps is understanding the overall vision of the business and translating that into a strategic view of its people needs, and is typically the responsibility of the head of HR, along with the business leaders
Step 3: Decide on HR Initiatives:
“What do we need to do to bring the HR strategy to life?”
This question is at the core of the HR function and the services you deliver. Review (and potentially discontinue) existing HR policies, programs, and practices, as well as identify where new initiatives will need to be developed to be in line with the new HR strategy (analyze priorities and decide where to invest). Incorporate what matters most to people
HR Strategy Through the Employee Life Cycle (ELC):
helpful way to think through all of the various actions that HR can take, is to look at each step of the ELC. Because the ELC encapsulates all of HR’s key accountabilities at a macro level, each stage of the life cycle will influence the HR strategy, just as the HR strategy will influence each stage of the life cycle
Step 4: Implement the Initiatives Across the Organization:
“How do we do what we said we would do?”
This is when you operationalize the HR strategy and ensure that how HR functions is in line with the strategy. Analyze how they operate (current HR service delivery model; HR Governance, Infrastructure, Services, Systems & Processes). Coming out of this analysis
could be
a new organizational design for HR
Step 5: Measure Progress and Incorporate Feedback on an Ongoing Basis:
“Have we done what we set out to do?”
Ensuring this accountability is best done with specific metrics to see if HR is meeting its goals. This can include reviewing certain key performance indicators, or KPIs, or a detailed HR scorecard to track HR impact, value, and costs. Remain responsive to feedback
HR Strategy at Netflix:
Netflix’s deep understanding of what they wanted to achieve and how their people could take them there was evident in every HR decision they made
Lesson 2 – Aligning Business Goals
The
purpose of an HR strategy
is to support the execution of the business strategy, so the
first step of developing an HR strategy
is, necessarily,
understanding the business strategy
What Is a Business Strategy?:
outlines what the company is hoping to achieve and how it plans to achieve it
External Landscape:
includes market trends, industry forces, and the broader economy in which the organization operates (
PESTEL framework
). It is critical as an HR leader to understand and develop an informed point of view on each of these forces. Having a view of the organization’s macro-environment enables HR to create a strategy that is competitive and timely
Internal Landscape:
what the company is trying to achieve and why—is just as crucial. Leadership may not be clear about this (opportunity!)
Creating a Business Diagnostic:
also referred to as a current state assessment or analysis and can take many forms (listen, listen, listen). The purpose of a quality business diagnostic is to develop a deep and clear understanding of the goals and needs of the business, which will then influence the HR strategy (this is key and foundational)
Step 1: Outline the Objectives:
understand what the business is trying to achieve and how it plans to achieve it
Step 2: Design the Questions to Meet Those Objectives:
Getting clear on what is important for you to know will guide the types of questions
(see examples)
. Keep questions them open-ended and push the leader and yourself
Step 3: Identify and Interview Key Stakeholders:
it is equally useful to use the diagnostic to build and foster positive relationships with leadership across the company (invest early on)
Step 4: Summarize Key Learnings and Takeaways:
ensures both your own understanding and also provides an opportunity to bring leaders into alignment (PPT, email, or PESTEL). This serves as validation
Step 5: Circle Back to Confirm Understanding:
the act of going back to share your analysis and potentially test hypotheses or HR priorities and activities that will address what you heard. Come back to what you heard from the business and ask, “Are the actions we are taking helping the business achieve its objectives?”
HR Goals vs. Business Goals?:
There may be occasions where it seems that the business’s goals conflict with HR’s goals.
HR goals can and should never be separate from the business goals
—HR is there to help the business achieve its goals
Module 2 – HR Strategy Development
Lesson 1 – Analyze HR Customers
A key part of both developing the HR strategy as well as preparing to operationalize it is analyzing
WHO IT IS FOR
—that is, which employees in the organization—and
WHAT they specifically need
Step 1: Customer Segmentation:
These will be highly dependent on the business context—the type of company, its size, and the types of activities HR is driving (see them with different lenses)
Step 2: Identify the Most Critical Groups:
identify those that seem most important to achieving the business strategy (some groups may be overlapping). EE’s needs could be looked at from their level, their skillset, and their status
Step 3: Understand Customers’ Diverse Needs:
The HR strategy will give you perspective as to what their leaders
think they need
. :smiley: Gather additional data points—including external and internal data, and from the HR customer groups themselves. Talking to the customer group directly can help you determine the actions and HR interventions
The Data-Gathering Process:
the purpose of the data gathering process is not only to collect data, but also to engage employees and start to plant seeds about what HR is doing and why.
How exactly you understand the customer groups, is just as important as actually gathering the information from them
Step 4: Determine How HR Will Respond:
Keeping Business Strategy as the North Star, and analyzing HR customers and their needs will give you insight into determining how HR will respond to what they find—how to enable the critical workforce segments of the organization to achieve its goals. Determining how HR will respond to what they find—how to enable the critical workforce segments of the organization to achieve its goals
Lesson 2 – Identify Priority HR Initiatives
The Employee Life Cycle (ELC:
there are a number of different levers/initiatives HR can pull that can put the strategy into action. A helpful source to look at while brainstorming actions to take is the ELC
Macro-Priorities for HR:
there are also macro-priorities for HR to take into account.
Quantum has identified four emerging themes
for HR that will likely influence priorities moving forward. 1) Challenging and innovating the employee experience (e.g. virtualization) 2) Elevating diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies (DEI) 3) Emphasizing employee safety and wellbeing (e.g. mental health) 4) Reimagining the world of work
Prioritizing HR Initiatives:
it is easy to see how this could become a laundry list of various activities for HR which is neither practical nor desirable. Gartner has created a systematic decision
framework
. Two ways to methodically go through the prioritization exercise is by giving them as score, or plot them in a 2x2 matrix
Prioritizing HR Initiatives - Example:
It’s important to keep in mind, though, that this is a highly subjective process, however, they can lead to a rich discussion about how and why to prioritize each of the potential initiatives
Lesson 3 – Design HR Services and Delivery Model
Think about how the HR function will deliver its services (what is the overall operating/delivery model). HR’s structure, roles (capabilities and skills), processes, and technology (or systems)
When considering
“what,”
you are crystalizing what it is you are offering and what you need to offer it. With
“who,”
you consider the structure and roles that will be needed in HR’s operating model, and with
“how,”
you consider processes and technology that will support them
The degree to which each is emphasized, as well as how it looks at your organization, will be dependent on your strategy (consider Macro and Micro levels). Same with Functional Competencies
Prioritizing Core and Functional Competencies:
The prioritized core and functional competencies become the foundation from which you can recruit and hire, assess and develop, and communicate clearly what HR needs to excel at. Identifying a capability as important does not necessarily mean that it needs to be delivered in-house (insourced, outsource, centralized, decentralized)
Typically
, organizations will look to centralize strategic and administrative tasks with strategic HR areas including workforce planning, talent management, succession planning, and administration, including benefits administration, record keeping, and payroll. Consultative services that are working directly with the business on issues like employee relations, recruitment, organization development, and performance management are typically decentralized. That said, often a centralized center of excellence will set the strategy and overall process for these!
The Impact of HR Strategy on the Service Delivery Model - Example:
1) Started with the “what” by first looking at what services could be centralized to enable HR to focus on strategic activities while also creating efficiency across the organization
2) This led us to ask “who.” We answered this question by introducing HR business partners in each of the businesses so that HR could operate closer to the business and offer a more strategic view of it. We also created a centralized center of excellence (COE)
3) Finally, we asked “how:” The new organizational effectiveness COE began a number of company-wide talent initiatives including a new performance management approach and first-ever talent review and succession planning program
Module 3 – HR Strategy Implementation
Lesson 1 – KPIS & Metrics
How you will demonstrate that your HR strategy actually works. The best way to show the effectiveness of your HR strategy is to identify, measure, and continuously review KPIs that tie to your strategy (and defend & assert its value)
What Are KPIs?:
effective teams and organizations identify the most important metrics (5 to 10). They can be Lagging (Outcomes) or Leading (What drives the Outcomes). By identifying and communicating KPIs, the HR function commits to achieving them. One of the common missteps in identifying KPIs is failing to take into account the unintended consequences the metric may cause :warning:
Choosing the Right KPIs: There are no universal HR KPIs and they depend on your organization. There are several common ones: Employee retention (or employee turnover), Employee satisfaction or engagement, Return on investment (ROI), Cost-per-hire or time-to-fill, and Promotion rates.
Bernard Marr divides HR KPIs into four key areas to measure HR effectiveness:
1) Measuring HR outcomes
, with KPIs such as Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) or average length of service
2) Assessing HR service delivery
, with KPIs such as benefit satisfaction or failure rate of new hires
3) Setting Goals Measuring HR internal efficiency and effectiveness
, with KPIs such as cost-per-hire and recruitment channel analysis
4) Auditing HR compliance with KPIs
, such as the percentage of employees trained in company policies or employee demographics
Setting goals:
Building an HR Dashboard:
“A simple visual display of the most important information that decision-makers need to help them achieve objectives”. A second purpose, is to become a place to capture current status and have a check-in with stakeholders as you progress toward your goals
Five tips for an effective dashboard
:
1) Keep your dashboard to a single screen or page
2) Only include the most critical, insightful KPIs necessary for achieving your operational and strategic objectives
3) Choose an appropriate and accessible way to display the dashboard
4) Make the dashboard easy to look at, navigate, and understand
4) Focus on information delivery and understanding
A common conclusion
in the
E
valuate and
R
eview steps when a
goal is not met
, is that while a specific activity was
valuable
, it turned out not to be the
root cause of an issue
and therefore
did not achieve the desired outcome
. In that event, it would be important to
go back to the business diagnostic stage
Lesson 2 - Implementation
With the
1) Business strategy understood
,
2) HR strategy articulated
,
3) HR customers analyzed
,
4) HR initiatives prioritized
,
5) HR services and operating model defined
, and
6) HR KPIs identified
, it is time for HR to get to work on implementing the various activities that will
bring the HR strategy to life
HBS defines strategy implementation as
“the process of turning plans into action to reach a desired outcome… the art of getting stuff done.”
Turning your HR strategy into action (7 Steps)
1. Set clear goals and define key variables
As we approach implementation, the focus shifts to identifying what could potentially get in the way of achieving the goals set out (what was, or not successfull in the past?, resources constraints)
Each of these must be identified with a mitigation plan or contingency plan put in place to overcome it (anticipate)
An impactful way to identify each of these potential roadblocks and develop mitigation plans is to conduct a thorough Stakeholder Analysis and Change Impact Analysis
With this thorough understanding, you can determine what your stakeholder groups will need—whether it’s frequent communication, influencing from certain “change sponsors,” or directly addressing concerns
The more due diligence and prep work should be done (could take days, weeks, months)
At the heart of almost all corresponding plans will be clear and consistent two-way communication (FAQs, PPTs, Meetings, Town Halls). Your focus is on getting people to buy into your plan
3. Delegate the work:
It's time to decide WHO across HR will be the owner of each project in your strategy portfolio. This is actually the "nuts and bolts" of WHO will be doing WHAT and WHEN
It is important to get as detailed as possible so that you can anticipate what will be needed, and people are clear on what they are responsible for doing
This is the actual resourcing of the HR strategy roadmap
4. Execute the plan, monitor progress and performance, and provide continued support
This is the most visible one—the time to actually do the work!
You will have a chance to monitor your team's progress and coach them on their leadership, organizational skills, and functional knowledge
Continuously monitor your roadmap to ensure you are making progress and keeping your stakeholders up to date
5. Take corrective action (adjust or revise, as necessary)
Incorporating input from your stakeholders will be important to increasing their adoption of the strategy
Forces that will influence you to adjust or revise your strategy can come both internally and externally
One way to stay ahead of these potential changes is to be continuously reflecting on internal feedback as well as industry and economic trends
6. Get closure on the project, and agreement on the output
Closure will likely look a bit different depending on your strategy and its timeline (Quarterly, annual, 3 year reviews)
It is important to conduct a strategy review where you reflect on your original goals and assess the progress you made against them
The KPI dashboard will be a key input to determining the effectiveness of your strategy (leverage on the dashboard)
Tip: Add a
"Potential Areas to Focus on Next"
column where we can indicate potential next steps that will likely inform the next HR strategy :star:
7. Conduct a retrospective or review of how the process went
This step is about the process of implementing the strategy
This is likely to either occur before the previous step or even continuously throughout the implementation (a Strategy is not a project)
This reflection allows you to take a bigger picture view as to how effective the implementation was, what information will be important going forward, and what you may need to do to strengthen the team
2. Building a Roadmap: Determining Roles, Responsibilities, and Relationships
You can now develop a roadmap for implementing the HR strategy, which typically includes defined work streams or activities that will take place, where accountability lies for each, and the timeline on which they will be done
Set up a governance structure at this point—establishing the cadence at which you’ll want to meet with the executive team, initiative and project sponsors, key influencers across the company (which is especially important for culture initiatives), and HR teams
You may want to create an internal PMO to help you develop and monitor projects
Strategic HR Leadership Certificate
Lean Management
Module 2 – Agile Teams
Lesson 1 – The Agile HR Team
Whatever we do from an HR perspective has to be fully and quickly aligned with the strategy, products, and core processes of the new business model
Agile Innovation:
innovation brings an immediate boost to production, but entropy quickly sets in, and progress fades (two steps forward, one pretty big step back). Kaizen is an ongoing effort with cumulative effects marking a steady rise as time goes by (not sustainable). HR function falls victim to the trappings of traditional “innovative” thinking
An Innovative Agile HR Team:
An agile HR team is more capable of sustainably supporting these functions within the organization than the traditional HR department. In order for any agile team to achieve autonomy and co-create at maximum efficiency with minimal waste, it must be made up of team members with diverse and complementary expertise. Two muasthead roles in place: product owner, and scrum master
An HR Scrum Team:
it is likely that the structure you choose should mirror the structure of the organization overall. See key roles:
Product owner (HR process owner):
collects and synthesizes data on the HR product overall
Scrum master:
maintains the integrity of the sprint cycle. Facilitates the work on the backlog, removes impediments to the team’s progression through the work, and obtains resources for the agile HR team
The agile HR team:
must understand with great clarity exactly who the boss is: the customer
An HR Scrum example:
What was amazing to me was the ability of our team to break this behemoth into much smaller, manageable sprint components and backlog items, such as building competency models for jobs that didn’t have them or selecting software to use for developmental feedback
The Outcome of the Scrum:
change did happen and continues one sprint at a time in its next incarnation
Lesson 2 – Agile Job Design is Agile Team Design
As we commoditize the workforce with highly standardized and dumbed-down job specs, workers have become the zombies of the business world (making engagement and innovation rare)
As Agile as a Basketball Team:
As in agile teams, playing the game changes the game. Each team adjusts to the demands of the other, and it is this ability of the team to adapt to the situation spontaneously that helps them overcome challenges
While management arranges the opportunity to play, sets the schedule, and operates the venue, it’s up to the players to create the magic
A Lean Job is a Team Job:
agile defines its activities and outputs holistically, comprising a temporary set of tasks that are defined by the team members themselves. The Team is smallest unit of work in an agile organization, until disbanded once output is achieved. Team members can be described through a combination of their role in the team. While teammember learned the interconnectedness of all the components of human capital management, they deepened their knowledge of internal customers (and their HR knowledge too) and started to grow a new set of specializations within HR
Designing an Agile Job:
Because any skill set is only useful in certain situations, agile human capital requirements can be tricky. If you design the job too tightly, today’s team will be useless in tomorrow’s sprint. Too loosely defined, and the talent management system may not produce anything. See middle way list:
1) Design job specifications so that people can play many different roles
2) Grow people horizontally across functional mindset, customer base, skill domain, and area of expertise
3) Reward and encourage mastery which manifests in functional expertise and other forms of job-related contextual knowledge
4) Implement decision-making through team consensus and advice-giving as opposed to authority or role-based power
5) Successful agile team members are broad in contextual knowledge, deep in functional skills, and diverse in experience in solving a wide variety of problems
The HR operating model similar to the one described in a Gartner blog from 2020 called 5 Imperatives for the HR Operating Model of the Future:
1) Replace the HRBP role with strategic talent leaders who represent about 10% of total HR staff who will tackle the most pressing talent challenges throughout the organization
2) Create space for problem-solvers or internal consultants. 30-40% of HR staff should fill this role, working on a variety of projects as the heart of the HR function
3) Provide agile support through COEs. This should account for about 10% of HR staff
4) Talent analytics specialists should make up about 10% of HR staff
5) HR operations and service delivery team should make up 30-40% of HR staff led by an HR chief operating officer (COO), and is responsible for the function’s operational support
Mobility and Compensation for an Agile Job:
traditional people management is of less concern in agile than project management and talent development, career paths need to deemphasize where an employee is in the flat hierarchy and more the value that T-shaped knowledge and experience brings to the organization. Agile careers are less about climbing the organization hierarchy and more about gaining skills and experience in problem solving
Career development ladders need to focus more on project complexity and technical depth in something that might look like a matrix more than a ladder
Artificial intelligence, social media, and other tools are now more capable than ever at describing employees as unique and individualized bundles of capability and experience instead of the crude methods used today to track job experience and salary level
Lesson 3 – Supporting Self-Managed Teams
Daniel Pink:
"Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another, and when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives"
Motivation comes naturally
, he says, when work roles provide a sense of agency and continuous improvement
The Needs of Self-Managed Teams:
human potential is being wasted. Smarter workers are doing basic work for higher wages, but checking their brains at the time clock. Pink highlighted three key elements that align to inspire motivation: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
Autonomy:
Agile, at its best, mines the creative energies of individuals through a constructive small group process which largely controls its own methods and outputs. How do you know what is expected of each person? Agile comes to those with high autonomy and high alignment.
Transparency:
requires that all meetings are open, records are available to everyone, and there is nothing hidden from the sight of team members or their internal customers. Second, it is important to ensure that there is two-way communication between the rest of the organization and your agile teams. Learning requires a non-judgmental and open-minded approach
Aligning Through Measurement:
the link between specific project activities and customer value can be elusive. There is no way of parsing out task by task what value is. But what we can measure is the progress of the team and we can monitor and learn from different phases of the process. Standard tools for measurement:
1)
Sprint burndown report:
tracks the completion of different tasks against the estimated total effort during a sprint
2)
Control chart:
is the cycle time an individual issue takes to transition from “in progress” to “done.”
3)
Net Promoter Score:
tells if customers are willing or unwilling to promote the products
Agile HR teams must continuously
ask themselves
what the projects they need to implement to make the most impact throughout the business
Alignment, both micro (within the team) and macro (between the HR function and the organization) is best reached through strategy and goal-setting
Role Clarity with RACI + F:
Case Study: Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Module 1 – Thinking Lean
"Agile is a way of life, not a set of tools"
Lesson 1 – Lean, Kaizen, and Agile
The Birth of Kaizen:
The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success happend post WWII. Today’s organizations demand a real-time, fully synchronized, ad hoc approach to making decisions and launching the efforts to implement them. Enter lean and agile: the child and grandchild of kaizen
Kaizen, Lean, and Agile:
managers, consultants, and academics use the terms “agile,” “lean,” and “kaizen” interchangeably, however somehow are working in the same conceptual space. Lean, kaizen, and now agile are part of a broader movement in management that encompass every aspect of organizational function and process
While agile is today a widely used project and team management philosophy and toolkit, it is also embedded in a broader set of organizational structures, the nature of leadership, the human capital requirements, and the socio-technical structure as embodied in each organization’s culture
Today’s Lean Organization:
agile and its cousins are ready to take the stage as the transformative processes for holistically managing organizations. There are many benefits in incorporating Agile (see full list)
Basic Challenges of HRM in the 21st Century:
it is becoming clear that human capital management requires a more integrated and complex set of management skills than touted in the previous century. There are several themes which have a broad impact, and I believe are dramatically changing the way we need to structure and govern organizations. These have profound implications for the way we recruit, hire, develop, motivate, and reward human capital within and outside our organizations
Themes and
trends to watch
:
1) The pace of technological change and business model innovation
2) Organizations have become more capabilities-focused and modularized
3) Recent world events in politics along with the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically changed the way work is done
4) The war for talent is intensifying
5) Women and minorities are not yet able to fill “high-end” jobs because of biases in STEM education
6) Ubiquitous technologies
Deloitte Consulting publication,
“Five Workforce Trends to Watch in 2021.”
(see list)
How Will Lean Management Help You?:
Ask yourself about the issues you're experiencing (see questions). Agile practices can help you and your organization fill gaps and improve the cohesion and effectiveness of your business. Agile Teams have something in common: strategically aligned and flexibly engaged teamwork. Sometimes, it’s called lean thinking; in the software industry, it’s agile development; in Japan, it’s kaizen, or, especially in the auto industry, The Toyota Way
Lesson 2 – Kaizen and the Toyota Production System
The essence of
kaizen
is the art of living virtuously, for our family, friends, colleagues and all those who share this world with us because of this constant change
Eastern Management, Western Management:
it is through the Toyota Way, and eventually through lean, that management theory has evolved to incorporate the best of both worlds
What Is the Toyota Way?:
the fundamental tenet of TPS in the most basic of terms. “All we are doing,” he said, “is looking at the timeline from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash, and we are reducing that timeline by removing the non-value-added wastes.” (see Toyota metaphorical tree)
The Fourteen Principles of the Toyota Way:
Toyota Production System at the Plant:
At the factory level—the workplace, or gemba—production is a well-choreographed. All activities flow back from the customer and dealer until the loop is closed again at the customer
Jidoka (“self-aware automation)
: The combined efforts of worker and machine are constantly aware of how the process is creating its output
The Three M’s:
Muda, Muri, and Mura: TPS separates waste into three categories: muda (process waste), muri (overload), and mura (uneveness).
Kanban:
Kanban is a method of managing workflow whereby the worker is focused on one activity at a time (To do, Doing, Done)
Hoshin Planning Process:
is a 7-step process used to strategically plan for action (each step uses PDCA)
Problem-Solving the Toyota Way:
workers on the implementation teams are tasked with responsibility for investigating the problem, learning the root cause of the problem, and proposing countermeasures to achieve a final solution (5 whys for a long-term and valuable solution - countermeasure)
TPS Management Process:
Lesson 3 – Agile to Scrum
In the 90s, software development projects usually involved armies of programmers that were managed to inflexible budgets, rigid restrictions on customization, and multi-year project timeframes. The end-result rarely matched the customer’s precise requirements
A Response to the Waterfall Approach:
Southerland (CEO of Scrum, Inc.) admonishes us to “change or die.” Command-and-control management and adherence to rigid predictability brings about waste and ultimately failure
The Agile Manifesto:
in 2001 Southerland rejected the status quo by coining the term “agile” and framing a guiding philosophy around their work, which they titled the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development.” They established 12 principles to guide agile teams
Scrum: Roles:
Agile is the overarching philosophy of development, scrum is the adaptive, lightweight methodology or process for making it all happen. The word “adaptive” is key here because there are no off-the-shelf solutions or best practices to rely on. Three key roles (whole unit) that are crucial to the success of the effort overall 1) Scrum Master (servant leader) 2) Product Owner (creates the product backlog) 3) The Scrum Team
Scrum: The Sprint:
the scrum team operates in consistent loops of work, executed over a short period of time—four weeks or less, but never more—called a sprint
The Three Pillars of Scrum:
Hallmarks of a Scrum Team:
Scrum teams benefit from the freedom it creates in its apparent rigidity in a number of ways 1) The planning process is incomplete by design 2) Relies on the collective intelligence of the team 3) Every opportunity to eliminate waste, both in effort and resources, is built into the design of the new system 4) Care is taken to look at the work effort empirically
Scrum for HR:
Rather than tie up a large group of people who only own a piece of the puzzle, Agile breaks the work up into definable pieces with a specific output in mind
HR Operating Models
Module 1 – Designing an Operating Model
Lesson 1 – Introduction & History
HR Operating Models:
The idea to keep top-of-mind is that an operating model is a systematic way of explaining how HR is organized to deliver its services
History:
in Dave Ulrich developed the three-legged stool, and is a direct recognition of the way the HR function can be structured. The three legs are: 1) HR business partners (help deliver business results) 2) Centers of excellence (specialist role) 3) Shared service centers (admin functions)
Talking About HR Operating Models:
Without intentional alignment around terminology, communication tends to break down (HR structure, HR delivery models, HR architecture, and HR systems etc.). What you call things matters far less than the agreement about what to call things (create a department glossary)
The Five Elements:
In this course, we’ll consider an operating model to built out of five elements
1) The structure: This refers to the organization chart
2) The roles: That is, the information captured in a job description
3) The technology: What IT systems are needed to get the work done efficiently
4) The processes: What workflows exist to ensure work is done in a consistent way
5) The metrics: HWhat data or other forms of evidence do we need to track?
Important to remember: :red_flag:
Our goal is to figure out how HR should be organized to deliver value
Important:
:explode: start by defining the problem, then ask yourself, "What operating model do we need to... <goal>. TRhe answer will be some mix of our five elements (not all, but the element most relevant to the problem at hand)
Key question:
What parts of the operating model you or your organization is struggling with most at the moment. Is it the structure, roles, technology, process, or metrics, and why?
Lesson 2 – Start with the Business
Dave Ulrich says, “HR isn’t about HR, it’s about the business”
If you think of an operating model as the answer, then you can think of the business context as the question
The business context tells you what HR needs to do; the operating model explains how you will do it
Some Key Aspects of the Business Context: there are four elements that often have a major effect on your operating mode (Size, Growth, Business Structure, Business Issues). The more you know about your business, the better idea you will have about what the operating model needs to deliver
Case 1:
Small and Stable:
“Can you tell us, at a high level, how we should organize HR?”
R/ HR needs to be able to support the congenial workplace atmosphere, and it needs to deliver the really basic HR service-like compensation. “Your HR operating model needs to be made of two main pillars: one that supports the workplace atmosphere and one that supports operations.
Case 2:
Big and Global: Due to the scale of this company, leadership has chosen, whether consciously or not, to adopt Ulrich’s three-legged stool as the basis of their operating model. Companies of this size, simply put, have the resources and requirements for COEs. Moreover, there’s sufficient diversity of business and distinct transactions to achieve economies of scale for shared services
Case 3:
Up and Coming: figure out how to organize this new HR function, but before you do that, you need to think about what the business urgently needs. You might consider: Talent acquisition, Culture, Leadership Development, Automation
Always immers youourself in the business context before we start designing a detailed HR operating model. You’ll notice that we are not applying a formula,
just a way of thinking
Lesson 3 – Structure and Roles
To explain how HR is organized, you need to articulate key elements of the department organizational structure, and you need to identify the key roles that are important in delivering results (with enough detail and clarity)
The Business Context
: the process of creating an operating model always starts with the business (building on an existing organization, or from scratch)
Building a Structure:
how much you centralize and how much you decentralize? Thinking through the alternatives will help you fine-tune your operating model (pros and cons). Also, you might build in processes that will compensate for any weaknesses. You will no doubt have had various points of tension or indecision as you created your sketch (Struggling with these decisions is good)
The Right Number of Levels:
The real issue with levels is that it’s always tempting for organizations to add extra levels (there are pros an cons). Things that could go wrong 1) Communication 2) Harder to coordinate 3) Micromanagement 4) Employees skipping reporting levels 5) Get rid of levels
Span of Control:
refers to how many people report to a given manager. There isn’t a “right” number for the span of control. It depends on the complexity of the jobs being supervised. There needs to be a good explanation as to why that layer of management is needed
Roles:
One decision you will often face is whether to build your operating model around broad or narrow roles. One could split that into several narrower roles if one can afford the headcount. Consider employee and company's views. Eventually, each role should have some kind of job description, but when you are designing your organization chart, you just need to put in a few bullet points to create some clarity.
What Is the Right Level of Detail in an Operating Model?:
If the board was asking, “How do you intend to organize HR?” then this high-level description of your operating model would be appropriate. Include as much detail as your audience needs to undersrand how HR will deliver its services (know your audience)
Iterating to Improve Your Structure and Roles:
Designing your organization’s structure is a collaborative and iterative process (keep refining after each of those discussions, and ask yourself questions). Designing your organization’s structure is more like nurturing a garden than building an engine
Lesson 4 – Technology, Processes, and Metrics
Technology:
When does technology become a crucial element in your operating model? There are two main reasons: 1. When you are making an important technology decision and that needs to be highlighted. 2. When there is something crucial HR needs to deliver that cannot be delivered without technology. One significant choice in technology is between using a single software suite or a collection of best-of-breed solutions
When discussing the HR operating model with senior leadership, their understanding of the team’s capabilities and priorities will change significantly based on the way you choose to arrange your technology. A common question that might be asked by senior leadership is, “How does the HR function use technology to deliver value?”
With operating models you are always thinking about your audience. What do they need to know? What is new, important, or unusual that you need to highlight? And, most importantly, what is the biggest driver of HR strategy?
Processes:
it’s worth noting that we’ve entered an era where processes and technology are closely intertwined. Whether technology is involved or not, a process is a series of repeatable steps performed to achieve a particular outcome
The reason we love processes is two-fold (efficienct and reliability). But remember, creating strict processes can lead to some pretty serious problems as well. Too many processes can inhibit flexibility and the potential to innovate (don't get obsessed). It’s also worth noting that sometimes you can use processes to solve problems that arise from the structure
Metrics:
Though many HR functions struggle getting good data, it is only through strong metrics that successful HR initiatives can be planned for and sustained. “How do you track the effectiveness of your initiatives and ensure that the HR function stays on course?”
At every stage of the employee lifecycle—that is to say, in every aspect of HR’s role in an organization—metrics can and often should be established to inform prioritization of initiatives and strengthen HR’s position as a strategic asset to the business overall
An operating modeling should be as detailed as necessary so that your audience understands how HR will achieve its results (e.g. 3 legged stool model). On the other hand, you must also be prepared to answer more detailed questions surrounding the minutiae of HR’s role in supporting the business goals. To do this, you will likely need to get into the details of technology, processes, and metrics to explain how HR will achieve that goal
Module 2 – Key Factors to Consider
Lesson 1 – Governance
Governance vs. Leadership:
how is governance any different from leadership? The important thing to note is that when we talk about governance mechanisms, we are talking specifically about providing oversight of an activity as opposed to participatory guidance of an activity ("Nose in, fingers out"). You may decide to add governance mechanisms to your operating model to ensure that complex or high-risk issues are handled properly, or you may decide this is not needed
Your organization’s need for formal governance mechanisms will change with its maturity, size, and complexity
Understanding the Big Picture of Governance in Organizations:
In large organizations, there will likely be four groups you’ll primarily work alongside:
● The HR committee of the board
● The compliance department
● The risk department
● The IT department
In short, if you are concerned with how the HR department will ensure nothing harmful or foolish is happening in its domain, it should learn what these other groups are doing (Governance is messy)
What Topics Are of Special Interest in HR Governance?:
The main mechanism for governance is some sort of committee (it all starts here). Topics likely to handle
1) Data quality, privacy, and security
2) Compliance with labor laws
3) The employee code of conduct
4) HR technology
5) Incentives
6) HR risks
When you lose confidence that informal governance is sufficient then you will want to set up a committee
How Is Governance Done?
: When the governance committee finds the answers their questions are satisfactory, it’s time to move on to the next issue, but if not, it will be up to the committee to
a) Assign responsibility for the implementation of improvements
b) Develop processes and procedures to follow up on
c) Review the plans to address the issue
d) Ensure the outcome of those plans meets the organization’s needs e) Keep an eye open for the next issue to address
Though structure, roles, technology, processes, and metrics remain core to the conceptualization of an HR operating model, there are times when governance also plays a key role in how HR will deliver its strategy.
Governance is some mechanism, such as a committee, that will ensure the organization is living up to appropriate standards. Governance it’s meant to ensure the organization isn’t doing anything harmful or foolish
A governance mechanism is about overseeing decisions—or setting rules around decision-making—rather than making decisions ("Nose in, fingers out")
In HR, you may want governance around issues such as:
Data quality, privacy, and security
,
Compliance with labor laws
,
The employee code of conduct
,
HR technology
,
Incentives
,
HR risk
You will notice that these issues may not fall entirely within HR’s domain. It is common for governance issues to cross functions
Lesson 2 – HRBPs
Gartner survey found that 82% of HRBPs are simply not effective at strategic activities. It has everything to do with the expectations of the HRBP role, and the lack of clarity and alignment around those expectations.
The first question you’ll need to ask is,
do you even need HRBPs in your organization?
R/
Don’t feel obliged to have traditional HRBPs in your operating model. It's your job to diagnose your function’s needs, and blindly prescribing someone else’s medicine is rarely a useful cure
What Should an HRBP Do?:
an HRBP’s role is to a) build an effective working relationship between HR and a business unit within the organization b) to advise the business on what HR practices it needs to achieve its strategic objectives c) help implement HR programs such as performance management.
The HRBP should be their go-to person for pragmatic solutions that fit their business context. They are there to help the business leaders solve human capital problems
We can better understand HRBPs by contrasting
two operating models
(
the traditional model
and
the Ulrich model
). The
traditional model focuses on providing services
(in a mixed fashion). The
Ulrich model maintains a separation
between the services (shared services unit, strategic consulting/HRBP, that is the HRBPs, and the expertise component/COE)
When developed and empowered to fulfill their roles with one eye on the business strategy and the other on human capital, the role can be an invaluable resource
But all too often,
HRBPs fall flat
. The complaint heard so often is that HRBPs end up doing tasks they were never supposed to take on (e.g. admin tasks, taking over people issues, forcing HQ HR Programs). HRBPs tend to fall into the trap of doing too much work that others should be doing and taking too little initiative in helping business units tackle strategic issues
There are a
number of reasons that the role tends to go wrong
1) Lack of understanding of the role by the new HRBP
2) Lack of ability to do the role
3) Lack of acceptance of the role by business unit leaders
4) Lack of time to do the strategic or consulting side of the HRBP role
How can you avoid this?
1) First, it’s important to get clear on who determines the relative success of the role (the leaders in the business unit they support, and the HR leaders in headquarters)
2) Set the expectations for both stakeholders (not to act as a concierge running HR errands for the business)
3) Diagnose which of the barriers to HRBP success exist in your organization and take action to address each of them
Here are some
ideas for dealing with each challenge
:
1) The HRBP thinks their role is mainly about counselling unhappy employees, clear communication of expectations is key
2) The HRBP simply doesn’t understand the business well enough to offer useful solutions, it makes sense to first provide training and ongoing coaching (or hire experienced HRBPs)
When hiring HRBPs with a consulting mindset (as opposed to HR Administrators) you can see the strategic HRBP cabpility (with HR Admin, less than 50%)
Other Aspects of Having HRBPs in Your Operating Model: things to be aware of if you want to successfully include HRBPs in your HR operating model:
1) Dual Loyalties:
a) They can either report to the business unit leader with a dotted line to HQ HR, or b) they can report to HQ HR with a dotted line to the business unit leader. In the real world, there is always tension between the Business Unit (Customization) and HQ HR (Standardization). Empower your HRBPs
2) Balancing HRBPs’ Relationship With the Centers of Excellence:
Can you hold the HRBP accountable when a COE Program fails? The answer is clear as mud: maybe. A useful step to take would be to ensure there is adequate time for HRBPs to spend building relationships with the COEs and collaborate on projects
Winning Stakeholder Buy-In:
a) The first step is to make sure to involve your key stakeholders in the process of designing your operating model
b) Understanding where your stakeholders (and future HR customers) stand when it comes to HRBPs will help you influence decision-making c) do not to underestimate the difficulty of making the role work
Module 3 – Operating Models in Action
Lesson 1 – An Enhanced Operating Model
The point of an operating model is to decide how you will deliver HR outcomes to the organization. We haven’t spent a lot of time discussing what those outcomes should be outside of the common HR Areas (HR ought to do more)
Services vs. Decisions:
we first have to understand the distinction between offering services and making decisions (e.g. Accounting vs. Finance). HR has Admin Services as well, and we need to make the distinction (HR between doing the practical work/services, and the more intellectual work of making business decisions). Otherwise, we will not be focusing our efforts where they have the most impact
The
term Boudreau and Ramstad
frequently use to describe decision making techniques is “decision science” (a set of tools and methods that empower leaders to make the best possible choices). Instead of having HR making wise decisions, the envision HR being empowered with a set of tools to make them, like:
a) Risk optimization (don't reduce, optimize)
b) Segmentation (segmented services)
c) Integration and synergy (map interactions)
d) Pivotal job (is one where an increase in quality or quantity would have the biggest impact on the business’s overall success; e.g. Google pay top spoftware engineers far more than average ones)
Take a moment to
reflect on your aspirations as a HR leader
. Do you see yourself as a professional who simply delivers a service? Or, do you see yourself as a professional who seeks out and opportunities to evaluate decisions around those services to best impact the talent of the organization?
How to Implement the Boudreau-Ramstad Framework:
It’s not easy to go from these big theoretical ideas to how you do something in practice. Let’s step through the five major elements of an HR operating model to see where Boudreau and Ramstead might fit
1- Roles:
The key change that must happen for roles to fit this new mindset is a shift in the emphasis from doing the work to thinking critically about how the work impacts talent (e.g. “What’s required to help managers make the best decision here?" to “What step in the process do I need to execute in order to supply a service?”)
2- Processes:
the question is, can you use processes to support that mindset and to make its application more reliable? Yes! HR can add steps to its existing processes to ensure better quality decisions. Steps that support high-quality decision-making should be built into processes, rather than just focus on efficiency for efficiency’s sake
3- Structure:
it’s likely wise to add some extra staff to the HR analytics and reporting function so that it would have the capability to support decision-making (e.g. Chevron has a decision quality department)
Case Study – Unisys – Building an HR Operating Model
Capstone Project
Part 1 – Case Study – Aligning Business Strategy
Part 2 – Creating Your HR Strategy
Part 3 – Strategic HR Leadership Exam
