Charting The Course
The business of performance management is heavily on the minds of the HR community. Led by SuccessFactor’s impressive growth track record, the conversation in and about HR is changing. In this era of heightened accountability and cost management, the usual rules no longer apply.
When focused on the performance of the business, HR can become a competitive weapon. When focused on the efficiency of internal process, HR is a boat anchor. It really, really doesn’t matter how fast or slow your overall HR processes are, how much they cost per employee or who is to blame for process inefficiencies. What matters is having the right people in the right place at the right time with the right skills and the right objectives.
The actual deployment of people to work on the business problem is the only thing that matters.The rest is the land of pretend that HR is famous for occupying. In today’s organization, you are either part of the momentum or you are a drag on progress.
One or the other.
It’s HR religion to say that one should never be held accountable for things beyond one’s control. In HR led performance management processes, the guidance is almost always to assign goals that are a stretch but within the realm of possible achievement. The notion that people should be held accountable for things beyond their control is an anathema to conventional HR wisdom.
What poppycock.
Business leaders are always responsible for things beyond their control. It’s the essence of leadership. The difference between HR that matters and HR that ought to be outsourced is as simple as whether or not the organization will take on impossible goals.
Let’s look at an example.
Imagine two HR leaders. One is given performance bonuses for reaching an organizational goal like “revenue per employee”. The other is given the more standard set of goals involving ‘keeping the trains running on time’. The former works toward a single overarching target to which she can only make a contribution and can never control the outcome. Her view is on the top line. The latter manages an HR organization with an eye on cost containment and process efficiency. Her goal involves the bottom line.
The differences in the way the function is managed are completely different. The first leader has a framework for prioritizing decision making based on organizational objectives. Faced with a choice between alternatives, the executive will choose the path that is most likely to impact ‘revenue per employee’.
The second leader will be motivated to choose alternatives that make running the railroad more efficient even if that reduces the likelihood of achieving goals like ‘revenue per employee’.
Imagine that the two are faced with the following choice.
Two senior managers arrive at he HR leaders office. Mr. A wants serious help filling two very difficult slots in a high margin, fast growth business. The search will distract the recruiting department. Mr. B is trying to hire 25 people for the Tucson call center. They are easy to hire and the work can be done quickly. Mr. A’s project increases the likelihood that the company will meet its ‘revenue per employee’ target. Mr. B’s requirement will help the HR department meet it goal to reduce average hiring cycle time.
The leader with harder to meet goals will focus on the business while the leader focused on measures of efficiency will choose the project that meets those goals. Which do you want, a business outcome focus or an HR process focus?
The HR leader who takes on goals that she can only influence is a team player whose work moves the organization towards its goals. The HR leader who is rewarded for making HR ‘better at what it does’ is doomed to irrelevance and outsourcing.
