People Management – Move from competence to confidence
Overview
People Management – Move from competence to confidence
Posted: 06 July 2010
SAS client partner Kevin Keohane, tells the readers of People Management why now is the most exciting time to work in HR.
"It's been interesting to be both a participant in, and an observer of, the changes that have taken place across the functional "people" disciplines over the past 20 years. The territorial boundaries between human resources, branding, marketing, corporate and internal communication have shifted relentlessly but never so much as in recent years.
With cost-cutting driven to the limit in most industries, attention has shifted to the people agenda as a source of value creation and efficiency gain - both Harvard Business Review and The Economist have recently put it in the top three drivers of strategic growth.
The antiquated notion of individual functions having sole ownership of captive audiences internally or externally has become risible in all but the most Neolithic of companies. And yet how many of our businesses still operate in precisely that manner? Breaking up people agenda tasks into manageable chunks is one thing; trying to then erect barriers between those pieces to define fiefdoms is where the problems begin.
While some organisations have tackled the multi-disciplinary approach, few have gone far enough in truly sharing accountability and ownership - often, it would seem, because of the lack of political will to elevate certain functions above others in the real or perceived organisational hierarchy.
All of this adds up to one thing: we live in the most vibrant and exciting time to be an HR professional. When else has the profession had more of a mandate, or had more evidence, to make important, meaningful and value-adding contributions in areas that have not traditionally been viewed as HR.
The biggest barrier facing us is our own behaviour. It's probably not unfair to say that, for whatever reasons, many HR and talent practitioners have fallen into a service culture mentality and a 'competence trap'. This isn't going to result in anything other than us doing more of what we already do - only a little bit better. Competence might look professional, but we must go further.
Business, markets, ideas, people and society are moving faster than that. We need to move faster. We need to shift from competence to confidence - where we aren't just supporting the business by providing support and service from the HR function, but are actually helping shape it from the front.
This is all easy for me to say. I don't work in HR. But from the outside looking in, I'm often struck by the lack of joined-up thinking in organisations. Of course, some are better at it than others. Yet we still encounter respected, prestigious organisations where HR and marketing are communicating to employees about similar topics at the same time but with no common core idea, message or alignment.
It's understandable: the core principle of twentieth century business management is division of labour among specialists but HR can, and should, act as the glue that holds the whole thing together and gives it its shape."