Managing Our Reputations

I recently read a very small sidebar in a weekly magazine that was focused on the "hockey mom" image of Sarah Palin.  The sidebar quoted the money spent in 2008 on clothing to ready Palin for the Republican National Convention.  The sidebar went on to state "and she still managed to look like she worked in human resources!".  Hmmm - I wasn't certain what I was to take away from that comment.  What I did know was that many employees and, in some rare cases, entire organizations still view human resources as stodgy, annoying, and out of touch with the average employee.  They also feel that human resource managers will "side" with the management team despite evidence of wrongdoing that tells another story and "protect the sham of performance reviews" in the words of one contributor to About.com.  Here, a Wharton School of Business article entitled Is Your HR Department Friend or Foe restates this rather succinctly:

"According to its critics, HR departments can be needlessly bureaucratic, obstructionist, stuck in the "comfort zone" of filling out forms and explaining company benefits, and too closely aligned with the interests of management yet lacking the business knowledge to be effective strategic partners. Dealing with these types of HR departments is like going to the dentist..."

Many employees have had only negative interactions with human resources and so - no wonder - they have formed such an opinion.  Unfortunately, sometimes human resource managers allow their department's reputation to be managed for them rather than taking an active role in forming the outward in view employees have on human resource functions and roles.  We all are aware of the push to make, and keep, human resources a partner at the strategic table.  This means pushing up change rather than letting change dictate what you will do next as in a reactive scenario.  This means using metrics to discern trends and establishing a sound case for acting on those trends when those at the top level are not reacting.  Taking an active role in the human resource department's reputation is a sure way to effectively manage it - don't let human resources just "happen" - drive it....and stop wearing "soccer mom" (or "soccer dad") business clothes...

More $$ = Less Innovation

Why have business practices seemingly stagnated over since, say, the invention of management? Notice I said invention of management.  I refer to management (or the act of managing) as an invention because I agree with Dan Pink, a career analyst and former speechwriter, who makes the point in a TED - managing is a creation of man. Business, as a whole, seems to be fixated on the traditional model of employees and manager and how compensation is structured. Most organizations, as well, like to think they are driving productivity and even innovation by offering incentives (bonuses, stipends, trips, special parking spots, tickets to a game, a private bathroom stall with the toilet paper roll guaranteed to be loaded where you don't have to spin the roll to find the starting point, you know - the usual).

Guess what - those incentives are not working. Incentives are extrinsic motivators - motivators that are unrelated to the task the person is performing or to the problem that needs to be solved. Want to know what works? Creating a business climate where employees feel their work is meaningful and where employees can make a connection between what they are working on and a larger purpose - intrinsic motivators. Yes, this is sounding a lot like your college psychology teacher's lecture on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs but this is science supported by a large number of studies and real-life examples. Take a look at Pink's TED talk below and do a little research yourself - it's pretty interesting stuff that directly relates to how we manage our human resources:

HR's Female Domination

In the U.S. it's at 71%, Canada 75%, and the United Kingdom 79%. What is "it"? The percentage of human resource professional roles filled by women. You could label this The Feminization of HR as Julie Cook Ramirez does in her recent article for web site Human Resource Executive Online. It wasn't always this way - the figure has roughly doubled in the last thirty years. Should this come as a surprise? Many experts say no. It seems more a natural progression of sorts. Looking back at the thirty year period past, many of the women who filled clerical and supportive roles within human resources and related areas were plodding through the ranks. These women were already in the pipeline (and knowledgeable) and so were promoted. This is the simple explanation. 

A more complex explanation dips into what qualities and skills women bring to the human resource table versus their male counterparts. The article sites these, very translatable, skills:

• emotional intelligence
• the ability to multitask effectively
• an innate capacity as a teacher
• a nurturing nature

This certainly is not to imply that males are lacking in any of the above skills - what the above list points to, though, is that females tend to have more developed skills in these areas. One could also make an argument that overuse of these same skills can make a terrible human resource manager - and you would be correct. It could also be pointed out that many female human resource professionals have gone in a completely different direction and exhibit terrible employee relations skills in a misguided attempt to be seen as "not like a woman". 

In the end sex should not be a determining factor when it comes to filling a human resource position. What should matter is what skills the individual brings and how well they fit into your organization's unique culture.

Mentors, Mentees, and Mentoring...Oh My!

"Is mentee a real word? I hate it" states Andy Grove, former chairman and chief executive officer of Intel recently in this article at Bloomberg Businessweek. Grove feels that managers should be acting as a mentor by being open to sharing information and learning from others everyday. Grove has a special dislike of mentoring programs constructed as stand-alone, separate programs that lead participants to feel as if mentoring is something you do part-time. "My problem is this: As a manager you are supposed to be a resource. The principal job of somebody in management is to be a resource to the people who work for you" Grove clarifies. The point is that mentoring should not be confined by the constraints of scheduled sessions and company-sanctioned forms and processes. 

Another current take on mentoring is that many organizations have not brought mentoring into the current age. Mentoring is not strictly about seasoned managers taking younger, less-experienced employees under their wing. This contributes to the many myths that surround mentoring. Here, courtesy of Amy Gallo, contributing editor at Harvard Business Review in her article Demystifying Mentoring is a list of common mentoring myths:

1. You have to find one perfect mentor
2. Mentoring is a formal long-term relationship
3. Mentoring is for junior people
4. Mentoring is something more experienced people do out of the goodness of their hearts

Check out both articles and think about your organization's mentoring plan. Maybe it's time to update it, bring it in line with current business needs, and ensure mentoring is less a program and more a integrated part of company culture. 

I leave you, my fellow human resource practitioners, with a final quote from Grove (you'll love this): "I suspect the reason these programs exist is so HR can beat you up and have something they can brag about". Oh boy...