All too often HR directors complain about the sheer volume of work or the business not understanding the contribution initiatives are making to business goals. But is this an issue HR creates for itself?
Do you have multiple initiatives that leave the business confused about the link to the business strategy? Do new initiatives appear overnight?
I was at a talk recently on leadership development and the speaker, a professor from a major business school, mentioned some work he had been doing asking companies to count the number of change initiatives and projects they had approved.
He said the average for a large company was 3,000. I wonder how many of them were HR or people-related projects? My guess would be at least a third.
How can this be justified and more importantly controlled without stifling creativity and innovation, not to forget continuous improvement?
One way is to have a clear purpose in the function yet when we discuss this with HRDs very few of them have taken time to clearly define with their team the purpose of the function and the activity that will tell them they are achieving that purpose.
Time spent to define the purpose in the context of the business strategy and the culture of the business adds clarity and taps into individual intrinsic motivation. Being clear about purpose enables individuals to make choices in what they do and where they place resources.
The best HR leaders use stories and repetition to embed the purpose.
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Are you taking on too much?
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