Wots in a name?

A look at a number of university websites would indicate that once again the management of a university’s ‘personnel’, oops! I mean ‘human resources’ Nope, wrong again… ‘people’, is undergoing change.

Yes, after starting out as ‘Personnel’ sections in the 60’s and 70’s and moving to ‘Human Resources’ in the 80’s and 90’s, the rebadged kids on the block are called ‘People and Culture’ or ‘People and Management’ and maybe somewhere hidden in the darkest corner of the Registry (yes! they still exist in some universities) is a branch called ‘People and Whatever Else we Should Call Ourselves to be Taken Seriously’ aka PWESCOTS!

The wonderful thing about having the name ‘people’ in the title is of course that ‘people’ are the most important asset to a successful business. But as one wag has said, that’s only until they work out how to ditch them and still get the job done!! The folks in the airline and finance industries would certainly agree that the powers-that-be have already worked that one out. After all, forget the fluffy stuff like EAP and wellness programs – isn’t the real role of HR to ensure the use of the core competencies of the organisation and the minimum amount of resources (including human ones) are utilised to produce the best results……….. for the bottom line?

The fear of course is that by putting the word ‘people’ in the title, HR/people specialists are setting themselves up to be on the next exit to Nowhere. The answer is, well, that depends! To put it in those eloquent words used by Barack Obama before ascending to the presidency of the United States “You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig”. This rhetorical expression says it all - making superficial or cosmetic name changes to what is currently ‘HR’ in most universities will be a futile attempt to disguise the nature of the product unless it is accompanied by a substantial shift in the landscape of tsunami proportions.

We have all heard criticism of HR before:

• HR are the Corporate Gestapo – “they aspire to be our business partner and then tell us by chapter and verse why we can’t do something then torture us with meaningless documentation and re-education training sessions”;
• The majority of HR staff have developed ‘transactional’ skills but operate in an environment that increasingly calls for ‘transformation’ skills when in fact a one way ticket to Siberia for them all would be the most welcome transformation;
• HR is seen as a cost centre that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line;
•  Bad HR like bad finance creates toxic assets.

And don’t get me started on HR getting a seat at the table!

There are of course no easy answers. While we can talk about drafting policy that is user friendly the reality is that a certain core of the HR business is to represent defensible policies that keep universities compliant with external legislation. It is also true that a lot of HR staff are employed in that part of the business that is transactionally focussed. Unfortunately many of them are overworked, underpaid, and if we are brutally honest, are more comfortable with being processors rather than making the transition to being strategists. As such (and I know this smacks of being a generalist statement and probably politically incorrect) many HR branches are characterised by having a large number of predominantly female staff employed at low levels in comparison to Finance and IT staff, who do nothing else but …process! Furthermore, many of these staff are of child bearing age and have to balance their work/lifestyle commitments.

Is this their right? Of course it is. Ask Peter Costello - when Treasurer of Australia he suggested that fertile couples have "one child for dad, one for mum and one for the country" and in the immortal words of JFK “ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”)

Is this reasonable? Well, of course I’m still in Peter and John’s corner on this one.

Is the high incidence of HR staff on parental leave/reduced hours beneficial to corporate HR achieving its outcomes? No bloody way!!!

But I digress; a comprehensive and socially responsible parental leave policy is not the major reason why HR is not taken seriously. The issue is that HR either do not produce the goods that are valued by the university or when it does it has no way of measuring it.  The reality is that in the tall trees of the corporate jungle HR people invariably sit on a lower limb to the bigger apes in Finance, Marketing and often as not, IT (and you thought ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ was fictional!). The outcome is that those on the higher limbs look down benevolently, trusting that the HR person has processed their bonuses while the HR person looks up and sees a bunch of arseholes who have no idea how HR can transform the university. 

And HR can save the university – right?

Of course it can, but can your HR area produce the following:

1. A performance management scheme that rather than producing a carbon footprint bigger that Bigfoot by creating forms and data that is locked away in filing cabinets actually provides firm linkages to promotion, reward and recognition, career planning etc.
2. Talent management programs that can identify the cost of recruiting/retaining 30 or more of your high flyers to determine if there is a good return on investment through analysis against  teaching and research measures?
3. Identify areas where there is high turnover and develop strategies to reduce it (perhaps by starting with the premise that most people resign because of relationships with the supervisors).
4. Empirical evidence linking workforce planning to effective succession planning, career pathing and developmental planning.
5. An analysis of the correlation between instances of academic study leave and an increase in research activity as measured by the number of grants, papers published, collaboration with colleagues in other institutions, linkages with industry etc. (I know one university was surprised to find there was little correlation).
6. An evaluation of the effectiveness of leadership development programs through such indices as 360 degree feedback of participants, inserting talent related outcomes in leaders performance management plans etc.
7. If an academic is getting low scores in their student evaluations, a process that picks this up, identifies the training need and then monitors the effectiveness of such training e.g. monitoring future student evaluations to determine if there has been an improvement.
8. Tracking of employee enquiries to determine whether HR policies and processes are easy to understand and comply with.
9. When a proposal goes to senior management seeking funds/endorsement does it give a complete risk analysis outlining the pros and cons for each concept along with similar examples, where available, of success and failure rates.
10. HR staff who have the capacity and motivation to be developed as business partners to the faculties/divisions rather than being perceived as blockers and police officers.
11. Marketing material and information that you have or can get to add value (e.g developing an HR catalogue of services which goes beyond describing transactional processes).

You will note that most of the suggestions above require some type of measurement. The reason for this is simple. If you can’t effectively measure the value of any activity that your HR area does, question why it is done.  That way HR might be perceived as a cost centre that not only contributes to the bottom line but also warrant a name change. 

At this point of the blog I should be telling you that as a previous HR General Manager I achieved all of the above and more. The reality folks is of course I didn’t! That’s why I went into consultancy, but that’s another story…

Steve Daysh
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Steve was previously General Manager Human Resources at the University of Adelaide before resigning in 2006 to set up Daysh Consulting (www.dayshconsulting.com)  which specialises in providing assistance to a range of people management issues in the higher education sector.

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