Whatever you do it must be business first
A common mistake made by HR directors is to try and work from some sort of template that covers the elements a people strategy should have. This is the wrong way to start. To create an effective people strategy you need to immerse yourself in the business first and foremost and then that can be translated into what the people strategy should be.
The people strategy doesn’t exist outside the business. The people strategy should be developed contemporaneously with the business strategy – it isn’t something that follows at a later date. And rather than starting with something like workforce planning you should start with the direction and values and purpose of the organisation. So given that, you really can’t come into an organisation with a strategy that has already been prepared.
Your HR skills will be taken as read when you arrive
You don’t want to go in as an HR preacher. You need to be commercial from the start. Your HR skills will be assumed – and for those wishing to start a career in HR there are now so many undergraduate courses that specialize in this area. HR used to be seen as a more operational and administrative function but now its seen as more commercially oriented and attracts better and brighter people with the potential to be leaders. What you need to have is gravitas and a strong influencing skillset. Naturally, interpersonal skills are at a premium, especially if you’re introducing change. We don’t see many HR leaders rising to the level of chief executive but the ability to create and implement an HR strategy is a high level skill that requires knowledge of how the overall business works.
You should always address the talent
The best experiences I’ve had with organisations is when there has been a specific focus on leadership talent. We’ve been able to benchmark that talent and create development programmes to support them. We’ve also made sure the hiring profiles we use match what is required by the business.
When I worked for one business in the care industry we found we’d exhausted the general candidate pool in the external market for care home managers. By changing the profile of these positions we were able to bring in candidates from related sectors such as the hospitality and hotel industry. We cross-trained them into the world of care and we found this to be more effective than taking someone from the traditional care industry and training them to be more commercially minded. So where you can you should take a 360 view of your talent development and the skills required by your operating model.
If the operating model isn’t right there’s little point in trying to make it work. You might need to change the organisational design and to do that you need to work with the board and the executive team. Otherwise you’re just layering something on top of a business that doesn’t work.
Use the data – and if there isn’t any, get some
You’d expect other departments to use data – finance, operations and so on will all base their strategy on data. Sometimes the people data just isn’t available in an integrated or usable way. As a result decision making and business proposals may not be based on robust data – instead you’re looking at concepts, principles, themes and even just gut feel.
You need to know the starting point for the HR strategy, carry out some initial base-lining and then monitor movement from there. There has been an explosion of people related data platforms and cloud-based technology is rapidly deployable so there’s no reason for you to continue working without the data you need.
If the business hasn’t experienced effective HR leadership before, you may be in for an uphill struggle
When I’m looking at opportunities I ask myself if I could see myself working with those particular business leaders. I need to know that they ‘get it’. I also need to consider the other board members and the non-execs.
The accountability matrix can be very important – you need to know who is accountable for what. If you have a strategy but it’s not clear who owns it, it’s probably not going to be effective. Early on I have a good look at the operating model of the business and understand where accountability lies.
The relationship between the chief people officer and the CEO is key – you need to be marching in step with your CEO if you’re going to accomplish real change.
