The Director of HR is exactly in the position where he or she can best identify why a company fails to achieve the goals it has set. The CEO must demand that HR directors provide him or her with such an analysis. Don’t leave it to the consultants. The key is to work with the CEO and CFO to search for the actual causes. Do not focus on the obvious external factors such as falling rates or currency appreciation. Try to find the causes that are related to how people do or don’t cooperate. If results are poor, ask what the response of the responsible manager was. Was his reaction quick when compared to the changes or actions taking place in competition? The CHRO must be able to distinguish when it is merely a mistake a manager had made and when the manager assigned to the task is the mistake. That will enable the CHRO to plan the next career steps for the person concerned.
On the other hand, the CHRO should not only be concerned about individual employees. He must seek the pain points and roots of problems in the company. Where is there constant friction, where are the places where people constantly cannot come to an agreement? There can be a need to intervene calmly through personal meetings. The CHRO must be able to deal with people withholding information, with passive aggression and also with people who are not cooperative and defensive. When the CHRO is able to reveal unseen and hidden causes of bad relationships, he is able to bring them to light and begin looking for a solution. That is exactly where the person in this position adds a tremendous value.
It turns out that firms that aggressively and dynamically change the allocation of resources are more successful than those that don’t change anything and always allocate their resources the same way as they did last year, as the consulting firm McKinsey found . A company should be as flexible how it assigns its human capital, not only the financial. This means that when there is a person that has a hidden potential, he or she should make it onto a list of talents and then someone should work with him or her. The company should hire new people who understand new technologies. People inside the company should move and change their positions in order to spur growth in other business areas.
Too often people who have good potential to cope with rapid changes in digital technology sit too far down on the hierarchy. The company cannot afford the luxury of leaving them to slowly struggle upward on the career ladder. The CHRO must actively investigate and creatively think how promote the talent of such people. Just as the CFO can make the right conclusions from the numbers, the CHRO should be able to recognize the potential in people. Sometimes it can help when these people are moved to another position, or when they are assigned to someone who can teach them the necessary knowledge or skills. The CHRO must be able to connect these perspective talents with those who can help them develop their potential.
The CHRO should also improve relationships, promote trust, and then speed up the pace of decision-making. He or she should also get team leaders to conduct performance evaluations more frequently than once a year, because faster feedback increases motivation.
Article source Harvard Business Review - flagship magazine of Harvard Business School