Can HR be simplified and made more powerful?

Can HR be made simpler and more potent for the businesses you serve? It’s a vexed question and one that has occupied the boardroom agenda at CIPD for many years. Having run the Kent Branch and served on their Council Board I was prompted to write a manifesto for more straightforward HR for the 21st Century in the form of a book curiously entitled Punk Rock People Management which has just been re-released this week. Since I first released this book, the Punk HR ethos has been adopted by the likes of Perry Timms in his travels around companies across Europe and in his role at the CIPD as a “Punk HR Provocateur”. Steve Browne, Executive HR Director of La Rosa’s commented:

“Punk Rock HR gives people access to the fundamentals of great HR !! Peter Cook has taken HR and put it in three chords and on the bottom shelf where it should be. This is a must have book to keep HR rocking and on the edge !!”

As well as my role at CIPD, I have some punk rock credentials. As a pale youth I was captivated by the first wave of British punk, that sprang from a general tiredness with the pomp and circumstance of progressive rock, three album boxed sets and 20 minute drum solos. I was amongst those witnessing the birth of The Damned, The Jam and narrowly missed The Sex Pistols at one of their warm up gigs. We also managed support slots with several punk bands.

Punk rock’s rebellion was a case of simplification, brevity and authenticity. Simplification was about three chords or even less. Brevity was exactly what it said on the tin , with many punk rock songs coming in below two minutes in length and authenticity was singing about streetlife and a rejection of the mysticism and fantasy world of prog rock. Punk was fresh, direct and spoke to me in a way that was immediate and potent. Some of punk was, of course, rubbish as well!!

So, what has all this got to do with HR?

Keep It Simple

Einstein was reputed to have one bar of soap, for washing and shaving. HR needs the equivalent strategy to keep their systems and processes clean. In a complex world, those companies that achieve the quality of “resonant simplicity” in their dealings with people put themselves in the running to win.

Keep it Short

Forget the talk of Generation X / Y being different etc. The human being has not altered biologically speaking in the last few years and the changes in our attention spans cannot be blamed on our genes. What has altered in the last 20 years is the amount of “thin slicing” of our lives with e-mail, texts, the internet and so on. The result is that many of us have less time for longer things and that means that anyone wishing to convey a message to us must be brief if they are to capture our attention. HR needs to be short in order to fit into business manager’s lives. It’s what pomp and circumstance rockers Queen must have meant when they said “I want it all, I want it now”!

Keep it Real

Engagement comes out of a sense of connection. This requires HR to have a genuine voice, to reach your people’s heads, hearts and souls. Lou Reed pointed out “I do me better than anyone else”. He is right and HR needs to act from an authentic core if it is to be taken seriously.