Albert Einstein once defined insanity as the act of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. As a Human Resource professional for the past three decades, I have witnessed this simple yet honest reflection of the human resources function in action countless times. Early on in my career, I was guiltier than others of the mindless implementation of processes, practices, policies which actually have a little impact on the business outcomes. However, never has this issue become more pertinent than it is today, especially when some of the most respected thought leaders have started voicing their opinion that HR has not been adding value to the business.
How long have we heard the same complaints and questions emanating from our fraternity — Why doesn’t HR have a seat at ‘The Table’? Why should a CHRO be paid any less than the CFO? Why aren’t there more HR practitioners on the Boards of Companies? What can we do to develop more HR people into CEOs? While the needle is certainly twitching, we still have a long way to go before it shifts. In my view, unless we, as an HR fraternity, put our collective focus on the way we think, process, and act with respect to the businesses we serve, we will always be settling for second best.
While many processes related to people are being well taken care of by us as HR professionals, what is missing is knowing and applying the ‘science’ behind these processes. This is akin to the difference between a surgery done by a specialist surgeon and an experienced nurse. The specialist surgeon would perform the surgery with a full knowledge of the science behind what s/he was doing, and a nurse (may God be with us) might try to do the same, basis what s/he had seen and learned by observing the specialist surgeon doing the surgery. The difference between these two would be known only to the patient! Similarly, the ‘science’ behind HR often gets overlooked in the mindless implementation of people practices that we have observed being performed by ‘specialists’ in the West.
Unless the HR fraternity puts its collective focus on the way they think, process, and act with respect to the businesses they serve, they will always be settling for the second best
At the Indian Hotels Company Ltd. (Taj Group of Hotels), we have over a hundred HR Managers/ Directors overseeing hotels of their own. Many of our colleagues have been in the field for twenty plus years. They are committed, passionate and hardworking professionals. Most of them are great human beings with empathy and compassion as their strongest attributes. Yet, we felt the need to further develop this talent. This is where the leadership team at Taj decided to run an HR Capability program for our HR colleagues from the hotels and corporate office. The HR function is fast moving into the next generation, and subjects like technology and how these would impact the emotions of people at the workplace are coming into question. While change is taking place, we believe that the much talked about area of HR adding value to business will remain the core of HR forever. Thus, we wanted to cover areas that are relevant for the present as well as future in our Capability program.
To begin with, the HR leadership of our organization met with eminent HR professors to derive the most relevant needs and inputs for this cohort of managers. Focus Group Discussions were held with multiple stakeholders – General Managers, Regional HR Heads, and even the participants themselves – in order to understand the different requirements, expectations, perceived gaps, etc. Armed with this information, the IHCL HR Capability Building program was launched.
The program has been structured in three distinct modules in order to provide participants with a healthy mix of theoretical inputs, industry practices, and real-life case studies, all culminating in action learning projects that each manager must devise and carry out themselves. The faculty was drawn from academia, HR practitioners, and business leaders. Module One covered topics such as the linkages between business strategy and HR strategy, business financials, workforce planning and people productivity. Participants engaged in numerous case study discussions and went through a course in financial and business acumen. The module ended with a live business simulation that was customized to our organization wherein participants applied all their classroom learnings to solve real-time business problems through a simulation.
Modules Two and Three focus on talent management, emotional intelligence, and related subjects. It also makes the HR leaders capable of developing other leaders in our organization to become more emotionally mature. The entire aim here is to ensure that participants emerge from this capability program as emotionally intelligent business leaders who understand the business thoroughly and know exactly how they, as HR leaders, can positively impact it. It will serve to build their capabilities as well as their confidence in taking the right decisions independently and adding measurable value to the business.
The ëscienceí behind HR often gets overlooked in the mindless implementation of people practices that we have observed being performed by ëspecialistsí in the West
Other than the HR Capability Building program, we have also focused on building the capabilities of our top 40 senior leaders with a focus on understanding one’s emotions and the resultant leadership behaviors. Additionally, our performance management and potential identification processes are modelled in a manner that develops people capabilities in every single line manager. While much training is required to keep driving home the idea that people management is everybody’s business, we have definitely set the ball rolling in this direction.
As I sit back to reflect on the future of HR, I can’t help but think about both my sons who also have chosen to follow their passion for the Human Resources profession. While our discussions often centre on the more typical ‘life-cycle’ issues and how each one addressed them, I am often pleased to observe that they also talk about business strategy, building capability, financial trends, technology, the importance of being emotionally intelligent leaders, etc. Not just from my sons, but from many young HR people at work, I learn a lot on the new trends in their thinking on people and HR. There is certainly a marked difference from my generation which only learned of many of these things much later in their careers. If this is the trend for our future generations in HR, it leaves me with much hope for a future where HR leaders will most certainly earn a seat at the table if they so desire.