Building effective HR teams

Through my time in HR, I’ve worked in HR teams of many different make-ups and configurations, and in my work with clients, I’ve seen lots more. HR is often one of the smaller teams in an organisation, and in far too many firms, has a reporting line via the COO or CFO. Where the people function reports to is often a signal of the importance that an organisation places on treating employees as its most valued asset.

But what configuration works best? This will often be to an extent dictated by resources; there isn’t a leader out there that wouldn’t like more people in their team so that it achieves more. In Dave Ulrich’s classic HR model, first published in 1997, he classified the four roles of HR as being:

·       Strategic partner

·       Change agent

·       Administrative expert

·       Employee champion

In 1997 the world was very different to today, and since then, the shift and increase in demand on CHROs has been seismic. In fact, in 2018, Ulrich proposed the ’13 pivots’, which refocused the function around the external rather than the internal, and towards the business, rather than HR.

I’m broadly an advocate of the Ulrich model but recognise that its success is dependent on several important factors and that it has its limitations - particularly in building the CHROs of the future. As I said in a previous blog, the CHRO needs to be several things to several people and is engaged in high stakes relationship management involving heavily vested interests. The skills to manage these challenges, whilst innate in some, will need to be learned and nurtured in others. Providing opportunities to do this before being appointed as a CHRO is difficult, which often means the first six months in the job is difficult and stressful. The model also risks giving people a narrow range of knowledge (if coming through a specialist route), or becoming deskilling in the case of business partners who can evolve into merely message carriers, without a depth of capability.

For me, in every HR role I’ve had, I valued having developed strong administrative and project management capabilities. Even as a CHRO, I found that the administration skills I had nurtured in more junior roles meant I could get stuff done quicker, particularly writing onerous committee papers, or manipulating employee or reward data in Excel. Project management skills are central to planning and driving a successful people agenda. I’m an advocate of a shared service HR administration team with the capability to support HRBPs and all the centres of excellence, as well as providing the support structure for transformation activities.

Effective, creative, and knowledgeable centres of excellence in the areas of talent, development and reward are critical. While the HRBPs should be responsible for the lion’s share of the business contact, these roles need to build effective business relationships, understand the aims and commercial intricacies of the organisation, and provide solutions and insights that help leaders to run the business more successful. Not only this, but centres of excellence also need to look externally for best practice to give leaders the information and edge to compete effectively. In my experience, we’re notorious naval gazers in HR and can spend too much time focussing internally.

And finally, the HRBPs. For me, this important role is often overlooked in terms of its difficulty. The balance of skills required, the knowledge of the business, and getting the right level of business trust without becoming the business was always tough for me. And more lately, I’ve seen BPs struggle to keep their knowledge and skills relevant, meaning they feel nothing more than disempowered messengers ferrying initiatives and feedback back and forth between specialist teams and their business contacts.

So, what’s the solution? Three things jump out to me: 

1. Trust – all the elements of the HR team need to trust each other. This won’t happen by mistake, it needs work and leadership. Like any leader, the CHRO needs to balance their role as a trusted partner to the CEO, board and ExCo with that of leading their team. Spending time together, building trust, often with the support of an external team coach, is as important for the HR team as any other.

2. Boundaries – setting clear boundaries for the roles within the team and being clear of where boundaries are blurred (and there are several areas), is core to success. Linked to point 1, trust is vital in doing this. Making sure that people have opportunities outside their natural role will mean succession planning and developing the most talented individuals to become the next CHRO becomes easier.

3. Communication – often, HR activities have multiple stakeholders and inputs. Take for example the performance and pay review; this can be high pressure, high emotion, and complex. Having a proper plan, with strong governance and sharing the right information, will set the team up for success.

Do you want to discuss more? I specialise in supporting CHROs and HR teams and bring a unique mix of ‘been there, done that’ experience and sophisticated coaching techniques to ensure success. If you do, contact me at info@hex-development.com for a free, no obligation consultation.