This weekend following a busy week away I sat and did some reflecting on feedback from HRDs and Heads of HR that I’ve been coaching over the last 12 months as well as feedback from CEO’s who have engaged us on projects.

10 themes have come up as the constants, and whilst we’ve been able to tackle some of this in our work, if these themes are resonating with other companies, we have a much bigger to issue to fix.

CEO’s and Business owners want:

Improved communication from HR, particularly when it comes to listening.  They and their teams want to be heard more, not thrown a solution immediately or referred to a policy.  

To be treated like Customers as well as colleagues and would love improved levels of Customer Service.  Some HR teams are still dictating their opening times, being too busy to support when needed, and are not always able to work at the pace required when it comes to making changes to pay, development, recruitment and exit of their team members.

Change to be implemented much more quickly.  They are sick of ‘computer says no’ or being quoted legislation as to why things can’t be done, often without being told what can be done instead. They want HR to be more of a driver of the changes that need to take place, a change agent, not a blocker.  When the business strategy is changing because of external pressures, change in demand or the need to be more innovative, they feel that HR and the People Strategy can be too slow to respond.

Greater clarity from HR on the best ways to do all things people in the business.  Answers aren’t clear, policies and processes are too lengthy and not easy to understand and therefore not easy to follow and they feel their hands are tied on too many issues.  They want simplified ways of working with and communicating with HR and the red tape to be binned.

HR and People Pros want:

To collaborate more with the business on the types of initiatives, benefits, processes and procedures that ate wanted and needed but are ignored often.  By being ignored HR are then creating what they feel is right and then being told it’s wrong, so they always feel they are in a lose-lose situation.

More confidence which in turn will give them a greater ability to challenge the business more, and in some cases, their own team members on why things are continuing to be done a certain way.  They want to be able to innovate and lead the way on new ways of working, but the leaders are only focused on new things when it comes to customers, not their own people.

A greater connection with the key areas of the business where they can make the biggest impact.  They want to be included on the important discussions allowing them more visibility of what’s on the horizon instead of always being the last ones to find out what’s happening and just expected to fit yet more work into their already overloaded workload.

The time to be more curious about why things continue to stay the same in their organisations when it comes to all things people.  They want to research what’s new, they want to learn from other companies, they want to find out what skills and development would help them create better places to work and they want to be able to implement this change positively and treated like experts in their fields just as other business areas are.

If you look at the reasons behind all of these, we find the same language being spoken and the same outcomes being wanted.  So where is the problem?  If we all want the same thing, where is the sticking point?  Is what’s being said really matching up the reality of what is actually wanted?  Or we do just find ourselves lost in translation and unable to communicate?

Our continued work now and into 2020 is breaking down more of these issues, after all our clients are keen to change the world of work for their people, but if these issues are coming up repeatedly in businesses, there’s a bigger issue to be fixed.

Kelly

Kelly is Founder of The Chrysalis Crew and Global Empowerment Coach for HR Professionals. She leads the crew with an open heart, an open mind and has the courage to challenge the status quo and do things differently so that we can change the world of work.

This blog was posted by Kelly as a LinkedIn article on Monday 25th November 2019