People helping people

By VICKI JAYNE

In the beginning was the slavemaster - and darkness definitely moved on the face of employment relations. Later came such things as patronage, chaingangs, production line workers, servitude, contractors, bonded labour, "freemen", work communes, unions and the Employment Relations Act.

More recently, personnel departments morphed into human resource management, and the emphasis on cost and compliance issues started shifting to recruiting, upskilling, remunerating and retaining top talent.

These days, people are less the fodder on which the wheels of industry feed as the assets on which companies depend for their ongoing health and profitability.

In other words, instead of weighing heavily on the "cost" side of company balance sheets (where they are good candidates for judicious slashing when times get tough), employees are making the subtle but significant shift to the "assets" side of the ledger.

There is definitely greater recognition that companies are only as good as their employees make them, according to David Hutchins who chairs the US-based Society for Human Resources Management, the world's largest association devoted to human resource management.

"You certainly hear more today about people being assets of the organisation. While that might sound a fairly cold term, if you think about resources versus assets - resources are something you consume, assets are something you invest in and grow.

"I believe that enterprises and executives around the world are starting to truly understand the role of people as assets in which they must invest to sustain the competitive advantage of their business."

While the "people matter" mantra has long been a chant of HR specialists, various external factors (skill shortages, rapidly changing globalised markets, ageing workforces) are now sheeting that message home with more force. And that is impacting on the role HR practitioners need to play - which is why Hutchins last week made a flying visit to New Zealand.

Here as a guest of the local Human Resource Institute (HRINZ), he spoke to HR managers in Auckland and Wellington about their roles as leaders in the global marketplace and shared the results of SHRM's worldwide research on the competencies that role now requires.

For starters, it involves being more business savvy.

People-policies need to be firmly hooked into the company's strategic needs, direction and market positioning.

"HR leaders need to be strategic contributors to organisational success, which means being fully involved and actively engaged in establishing business strategy.

"We need to understand the economic environment the organisation is operating in, we need to bring more business perspective to balance how people are deployed and utilised within the organisation, and we need to be thinking forward - anticipating change."

Hutchins says HR is accountable for creating organisational change - the ability to be responsive to change rather than just reactive. It also needs to acquire a broader perspective, what Hutchins refers to as an "outside-in" rather than inside-out approach.

"We should not approach HR with a narrow view of what that entails but with an understanding of what the wider organisational needs are and how HR practices can meet those needs."

That involves closer collaboration with other functional executives. It also requires having a global mindset.

"As the world is growing smaller, faster and more homogenous, people, information and capital are flowing across borders, and technology has eroded distance, so whether a company has 50 or 5000 employees, they have to understand they are competing in a global marketplace.

"And the key determinants for success in that marketplace are people, culture and a capacity for change within the organisation. Getting those things right is what will make or break organisations."

The ability to provide a "strategic contribution" and business knowledge are two of the primary HR competencies identified by the research. The other three are "personal credibility", a thorough grasp of HR service delivery, and understanding of HR technology.

Seven traits have been identified as vital for effective HR leadership. They read a bit like a wishlist of attributes for any leadership role - courage, character, confidence, competence, resilience, purpose and flexibility.

Confidence, particularly in oneself, is self-explanatory. Courage means having the ability and initiative to step up to the challenges at hand and the opportunities they provide. Competence includes all the items covered above.

Purpose is about understanding the "why" of business activity and helping others to understand what that means, says Hutchins.

"The ability to communicate that core purpose of the company to the people working within it helps them to understand how they can contribute."

Resilience, he explains, is the ability to bounce back from failure - to accept, learn, move on.

"It is using failure as an opportunity to grow and not be afraid of extending yourself. In today's economy, we talk about the importance of organisations being able to reassess and change business models and strategies based on changing economic circumstances.

"But they have a difficult time changing business models even when they're not working, so there needs to be capacity and resilience to identify what is not right and lead the exploration of new strategies.

"To do that, the sixth trait is flexibility - which has to do with the capacity and preparedness for change."

Last but not least comes "character".

Hutchins believes HR professionals have a tremendous opportunity to take a role in restoring the trust and credibility in business leadership that has been somewhat lost of late.

"We don't have a lot of control over many things in our lives but we do have in the choices we make - and we choose our character every time we make a choice.

"As HR professionals, we must make the right choices and lead the organisation in making the right choices so we are able to be strong models of corporate ethics and corporate responsibility in our role.

"If we are leaders with character, we are able to help our organisations lead with character as well."

To a large extent, it is HR's role to be the keeper of corporate culture - in fact it could be seen as the keeper of many cultures, says Hutchins.

"As organisations become truly global and operate within an environment of multiple cultures, it has to help people operate within that environment with all the dynamics that represents.

"In essence, we build in through our own character the ability to respect and work with varying cultures for the greater good."

There is little doubt that Hutchins is a passionate and idealistic advocate for the profession he has been pursuing for more than a quarter of a century.

Apart from chairing the SHRM, he is vice president, human resources, for the US Federal Credit Union and says that company's motto pretty much sums up everything he has strived for.

"It is 'people helping people', and that's a philosophy that translates to all enterprise because, in the end, there is no organisation in the world that exists without people.

"And all organisations, whatever else they may contribute, are in some ways contributing to the growth and development of human kind.

"The HR role is very much part of that. I said recently that we have to help all people in business to be people who care while at the same time we have to care about people."

Seven traits for HR leadership

* Confidence: in oneself.

* Courage: to meet challenges head-on.

* Competence: in the above.

* Purpose: understand this to grasp what needs to be done.

* Resilience: to recover from failure.

* Flexibility: to cope with change.

* Character: to restore credibility and trust.