Tuesday Report on the SHRM Atlanta Conference: Credible Activistism and Mobile Employees

The 20th Annual SHRM Atlanta conference is rolling along on it second day. The sessions continue to be good. I added a session earlier on Being a Credible Activist delivered by Vicki Hess of Catalyst Consulting. Vicki is has a professional speakers certification and it shows in her delivery. Smooth, engaging and interactive. More importantly however she spoke on being a Credible Activist, one of the competencies developed by SHRM and Dave Ulrich in HR Competencies: Mastery at the Intersection of People and Business. Here are some tidbits from my twitter stream of her session:

• Direct impact on ROI= Credible
• Passion, integrity, selflessness, and commitment make for a credible activist
• Professional paradise for HR is being productive, satisfied and energized
• Beliefs and mindsets drive actions and outcomes
• Build credibility by knowing the business and telling the truth
• You can be an activist by identifying the elephant in the room and pushing boundries
• Practice HR with an "attitude"

Obviously a twitter stream does not do justice to her presentation. But the result of this presentation for many was the "OK" to have a voice in HR.

The second session I went to was another compliance session on Minimizing Unintended Risks from Today's Mobile Workforce presented by Rayna Jones an attorney for Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, LLC. Her message was somewhat sobering talking about employer liabilities for employees using mobile devices while driving, employer liabilities for "off the clock" work by employees using these devices and employer liability for what she called "textual harassment." Some very good policy advice. I will be posting about this subject more in the next week or so. So stay tuned.

The conference wraps us this afternoon with a silent auction so there will be some happy HR people later today.

The HR Ratio Or "How Many Employees Does It Take to Screw Up an HR Department?"

Ok, ok, I know this title made some of you bristle with outrage. But calm down, it was more to get your attention. What is the proper HR-to-Employee Ratio is a question frequently asked by people new to HR. Sometimes it is even asked by people not so new to HR. And if you ever get it asked by your CEO you had better know the answer.

This is the calculation. Though it is seldom expressed in terms of this calculation. It is generally experessed in terms of 1:100 or 1:250 or 1:400..... you  get the idea.

But knowing that calculation is not the answer to the question. Because the answer is "It depends." But if the CEO is asking you the question that is not what you say. Because you should know what the "DEPENDS" factors are for your company, your company size, your leadership, your industry and your sophistication. For example in The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance authors Becker, Huselid and Ulrich talk about research that shows that companies that had low quality of HR leadership had a ratio of 1:253.88. Companies that had high quality HR leadership had a ratio of 1:139.51. Research as also shown that the ratio also depends on these following factors:

• Company size. Smaller companies may actually have a smaller ratio because much of the process are not automated and therefore require more people to get them done. (Either that or the person works themselves to death. A situation often expressed to me.)
• Sophistication. Companies that are technologically adept may have smaller ratios due to automation, such as self-enrollment or online performance evaluation.
• Level of Outsourcing. Obviously the more funtions of HR you have outsourced the fewer HR people you need on staff.
• Service model. Your model for delivering HR services to your "customer" base will require different levels of staffing and hence a different ratio. A company I once worked for had 30 HR members for 1000 employees. A ratio of 3:100. That was because we had a "high touch" service model. The more complex or sophisticated your employee perhaps the higher the ratio.
• Dispersion of the employees. If you have a decentralized structure and want to have a decentralized HR department you will probably have a larger ratio than will a centralized structure.

You do have to be careful, regardless of the reason, to not have HR people for the sake of having HR people. You must remember that there needs to be an appropriate Return-on-Investment (ROI) for the number of HR people you have on staff. So that requires you to be able to determine what that ROI is and if it is desirable in your organization.

So gather your information. One source of information, and the inspiration for this post, was SHRM's benchmarking reports . They are available to both members and nonmembers. (I get no compensation for suggesting them.)

If you want to read another blog post that does an excellent job of talking about this subject click on HR Ratio versus HR Contribution. This is a well written post by Magdelena Meller of breakpoint HR from about a year ago.

By the way, the answer to the question of "How many employees does it take to screw up an HR department?" is "IT DEPENDS." It is your call.

Who Is HR's Customer? The Correct Answer Will Improve Your Performance

In any HR class I have taught I have always asked this question. "Who is HR's customer?" The answers given vary, but usually include the CEO, the employees, the supervisors, the managers, or some combination of these. Occassionally, but not often enough, someone comes up with what I think is the right answer. To me the ultimate customer of HR is the customer who actually spends money to buy your company's product or service. And if you are not paying attention to them, and understand their needs, wants and desires then you cannot fully understand what kind of employee your organization needs to have. If you do not have this information you are guessing who will make a good employee or you are making the assumption that the hiring manager knows. And that is not a sure thing!

To my way of thinking you need to spend time with these customers to be a better HR professional. Work in a retail environment? Ever worked the floor? Work in a hospital? Ever spent time with a patient? Work in a plant that makes wrenches? Ever talked to a buyer or user of the wrench? If the answer is "NO" then you are not doing your best job. "But I don't have time to do that, I  have to do my job." My response is that is an excuse and not a reason. Spending time with those customers is part of your job. And one of the most important parts. So get it on your calendar. Get out from behind your desk and learn what customers want in a good employee that interacts with them, their process or their product.

I am not quite sure if where he learned it, but Dave Ulrich agrees with me. LOL So resolve to follow Dave and Mike's advice in 2010 and get out and meet your "real" customer. It may open your eyes and it will definately make you a better HR professional.

Have a VOICE in HR and Use It: Being a Credible Activist

I had the very good fortune to spend a day, yesterday, with professor, author, consultant, and HR thought guru, Dave Ulrich. (Of course there were another 200 people there as well). He had a long "conversation" with us about the field of HR and what it takes to be an HR professional today. He talked about how HR can transform organinzations and what competencies it takes to do so. Much of this is detailed in his book HR Competencies (shown at the right). If you are serious about your career in HR and you feel you need to take it to the next step then you need to read this book and internalize what you learn.

I could write a very long post on these competencies, but I won't. But I do want to mention the NUMBER ONE competency that Ulrich et al. have determined to be most important in the 21st century. That is the competency of CREDIBLE ACTIVIST. Credible is believable, credible is knowing what you are talking about, credible is knowing about business and your business in particular. Alot of HR people consider themselves credible. The jury is still out on whether their CEOs consider them credible. (Mostly because of the business knowledge requirement.) One of the reasons the CEO does not consider HR credible is HR has NO VOICE. Many HR people "speak when spoken to" and do not offer opinions on the business. 

This is where the second word in this competency comes into play. ACTIVIST. This does not mean that you have to be a rabble-rouser (click the link for the definition). It means that you have to stand up and offer opinions and points of view. And you don't  wait to be asked. Offer your points of view BEFORE anyone asks you what you think. And have opinions and points of view on more than just HR topics. If you know your business (another competency) then you should be able to talk about operations, marketing, branding, finance, etc. Being an activist means you are not afraid to be contrarian. Your management "partners" may not listen to what you have to say, particularly at first, but you need to use your voice regardless.

Some of the people sitting at my table indicated they were afraid to do that. They were afraid to speak up, even when they knew things being done were wrong. One person said she "picked her battles carefully." Another said she did not speak up because she did not really know the business because she had NEVER spent any field time with employees. She was "too busy" doing her work. (I probably rolled my eyes big time at this.) I know many HR people are not activists because they naturally are "conflict avoiders". And speaking up can lead to a confrontation. But if you know you are right you need to have that confrontation and you don't need to, and should not, back down. I used to work for an HR manager that had so little back bone I was surprised he was able to stand up. Well I don't need to get off on that rant.

Many of the credible activists I know are also bloggers. Two of my favorite (among many) are Laurie Ruettimann of PunkRockHR and Kris Dunn of The HR Capitalist. I call Laurie a "beast sticker". She is not afraid to take a sharp stick and poke the "beast of HR". She can be profane, and I don't always agree with her, but she is fun to read because she riles people. She has been accused of not being "credible" because she does not currently hold a "real" HR position. HOGWASH, this lady knows her stuff. Kris is also a beast sticker. He is in my opinion as close to being the ultimate HR pro there is. He is what I want to be when I grow up, despite the fact that I am 20 years older than he is. In fact he beat me to this same topic. As I was driving home to Atlanta from Birmingham last night and thinking about this topic he had already beat me to the punch. You can read his very well written take on CREDIBLE ACTIVIST by clicking on his name above.

BTW, Dave Ulrich says that one of the first steps in being credible in the 21st century is certification. So think a second time about getting that PHR or SPHR.

Closing thought- Become a pro, find your voice and exercise it frequently. Learn from Laurie, Kris, and a myriad of other bloggers on what to say, how to say it, and in the words of Nike, "JUST DO IT."

Strategist or Steward?

I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Robin Lissak of Deloitte Consulting present on Influencing Top Leaders. I even Tweeted on the presentation and got some good response to those tweets. So I thought a post was in order.

Lissak talked about the disconnect between CEOs and CHROs (Chief HR Officer) in what was seen as important for an orgainzation. One disconnect was that only 50% or so of organizations even have a CHRO. They all have a CEO. Second disconnect was that only 14% of the CHROs saw themselves as being strategic while 95% of CEOs want them to be. We always talk about that "seat at the table" and here we have an opportunity to get it and we are not. WHY ARE WE SO BEHIND THE CURVE???

Lissak made the point that HR mandates for the CHRO must involve revenue growth, talent strategies and operational excellence. CEOs see these as people issues. People issues are strategic. Most HR departments are still working on operational excellence. But HR issues are administrative. The message is that CEOs don't give a crap about HR issues. As Ulrich say in his books Human Resources Champions and HR Competencies the administrative stuff is a given. We have to do that well. However, a CEO does not care when we do it well. They only care when we do it poorly.

Dr. Lissak makes the point that people issues require a strategist while HR issues require a steward. And both of these are listed by Ulrich as HR competencies. However, my question is this, can you find those skill sets in the same person? Can the CHRO be both a strategist and a steward? The strategist needs to know the business of the business. They need to understand the customers and the value chain of the business. As Ulrich says they need to be the strategic architect, talent manager and the business ally. But the HR operations side needs someone who is that operational executor. Someone who pays attention to the detail of compliance, paperwork, proper reporting and the day-to-day employee relations. So it this the steward?

I personally believe that those are two different sets of skills. One of the things Lissak mentioned is the short tenure for many CHROs because they fail to connect with the CEO. Perhaps that is because two many CHROs have the STEWARD skill set and fail on the STRATEGIST end. Or perhaps they are too much STRATEGIST and miss the details needed on the STEWARD side and the company gets in trouble.

A solution? Hire a strategist as the CHRO, but make very sure they have a good steward as number 2!

What do you think? Tell me where I have miss read this dilemma and offer another solution.

From The CEO: It Is All About Talent

WorkForce Management online published an article last week entitled What the CEO Wants From HR. The article starts with the statement "At successful large companies, interaction between the CEO and the chief HR executive revolves around building and maintaining the very top layer of corporate leaders—and little below that." The article goes on to say that in larger companies CEOs are only interested in the talent development activities of HR, especially the development of the upper management levels. It further says that CEOs are not interested in the operational aspects of HR and they have little tolerance of HR leaders who try to position HR operations as a strategic initiative. They expect it do be done and done well but they are not really interested in the day to day. And that is they way it should be.

Well I have news for WorkForce Management. In my experience working with small business the same desire on the part of CEOs is true. They want to know that HR is doing their job and doing it well but they don't want to know the operational details. They are concerned about having the right people in the right place to do the best job. They don't care what ID the person presented for the I-9. That only becomes a concern when the HR person screwed up and the company is in trouble. At that point operations becomes an issue! In his book, Human Resource Champions, Dave Ulrich says that one of the key competencies for HR is to be the Administrative Expert. And he says if you do NOT do that WELL you will basically fail at all else you do because you will have no credability. And that is very true. Not only will you have no credability you most likely will have no job.

If you are in HR and trying to be that "strategic player" you have to remember it is all about TALENT, getting it, developing it and keeping it. But that does not mean you can't let compliance and admistration fall by the wayside. Those things still have to be done and done well. The CEO just doesn't want to hear about them.

Thanks to Wally Bock for having the pointer to the article in his blog Three Star Leadership.