Job hunting/recruitment and selection process in my dear country Nigeria(part4)

While waiting to hear from Mr Dapo I got a call from an HR recruiting agency asking if I could attend an interview in a week's time I happily said yes I will"after all I had nothing doing at home aside waiting to hear from Mr Dapo on my resumption date". 

As I was planing for my trip for the interview, I was a bit nervous but when I thought of my previous interview experience with Mr Dapo I felt good and confident with my self. Two days to the interview date I embarked on my journey,as soon as we got in to the city,I  checked in to a hotel and rested from the long trip. 

As I woke up it was 11pm "wow how time flys". I decided to read some likely HR questions to help prepare me for my interview the next day. Luckily for me I had a friend who lived in the city and stayed close to the hotel I was in.

He picked me up from the hotel to the venue of the interview, as we drove down to the interview center we discussed about likely HR questions and argued about the remuneration most organisations offer these days, and I thought to myself; this is one thing that is always up in my head when ever I am applying for a job. 

As I got to the venue I looked around, at first and said to my self "I don't think I like the looks of things around here" but regardless, I said my goodbyes to my dear friend as he zoomed off. I walked up to the the security guard and asked for the precise location of the interview. As he pointed to a building just beside me,I thanked him and walked away. 

I climbed up the stairs, and the first thing I noticed was the dirty stairs, i wondered "what the hell is this for Christ sake". I got to the office knocked and I heard some one shout "yes come in".

As I walked straight to the reception I greeted a slim dark lady who had a smile on her face and asked me if I was here for the interview. "Yes ma I am here for the interview, I got a call from Mrs Matthew" The lady smiled and directed me to one of the seats at the reception to wait for Mrs Matthew.

As I took my seat, I looked around and noticed some ladies seated at the other side of the reception waiting for an interview too. They all kept staring at me, and it made me feel so uncomfortable and I suddenly began thinking to myself " I am over dressed for this kind of place jeez!!!" 

After 6 mins a short, plus size lady walked up to me with a big smile, And I immediately took note of her nice dentition. "Hello Clara nice to see you come into my office". I stood up, followed her and she told me to take a seat ,she still had the wide smile as she greeted me pleasantly and welcomed me in to her small office. 

She began to tell me more about the organisation she works for and how their role is to get qualified employees to clients. As I was briefed on the job, I got to realise it was not an HR role but a personal assistant role "what is with me and  personal assistant jobs" 

She briefed me about her client and explained the nature of the job, afterwards she directed me to an inner room where my interview was going to take place with a collegue of her's and then she took her leave.

While waiting for my interviewer  to come in I looked around the room trying to imagine what the interviewer might ask me in regards to the job. After 5mins a slim young lady about 5.5 ft tall walked in to the room, with a smile on her face, she greeted me and asked for my name and a copy of my resume. 

She introduced her self as the HR officer and asked me if I understood all what Mrs Mathew had discussed with me. I smiled and nodded, and she asked "tell me about your work experience"  I smiled and told her all my past work experiences and what I had learnt and achieved so far. While I was talking to her I was looking at my resume and discussing about the roles I played in each of  the organisations I worked for and as I was talking she cut me short and said to me "can you stop looking at your resume and just look at me and discuss" I looked at her in shock cause I did not see anything wrong with talking to her and at the same time having a glimpse of my resume. 

From my study in HR there was no issue with looking through your resume and discussing your roles with your interviewer. It's like given a lecture and flipping through your books while discussing with your students. 

 She went further asking some questions that I did not think was relevant in a job interview.... Questions like " why do you look so pretty?"  On hearing this I could not say anything at that moment but laugh cause I was amazed at such a question. I did not respond to her question but only smiled and looked down at my resume I was holding in my hand"saying to my self what an awkward question though". 

The interview was finally over after 15mins and Mrs Matthew came in to the room with all smiles asking how my interview went I told her all went well. She told me she will give me a call in 3 days time so I should hope to hear from her and hopefully I get the job. I smiled and said okay ma I hope to hear from you too, thank you. 

As I walked out of the office, I could not wait to get back to my hotel eat and sleep.

As soon as I got to my hotel I called my parents and told them how the interview went, we laughed about it and my dad said to me not to worry, since I have a better job waiting for me. "once Mr Dapo sends you an email get ready to pack your stuff and leave for your new job just forget about this interview you went for since it's a PA job and they have already given you a clue that their client is very demanding and troublesome so no need accepting the offer even if the lady gives you a call in two days time". I thought about this and decided to take to my dad's advice. 

I got a call from the very jovial Mrs Matthew She explained to me that I would not be suitable for the job since I only have an HR personnel experience and no Personal assistant experience but she has another offer for me will I be willing to take it ?  And I responded "Mrs Matthew I am sorry but I don't think I will be willing to accept that offer as I have already been offered something else, i am only just waiting for the confirmation email from the HR of the organisation". I could feel the disapointment from her voice and she said okay that is fine, you have my number please give me a call anytime you decide to change your mind, thank you and take care. 

I felt bad and hoped the action  I just took was the right thing, I was just ready to pack my bags and go home.

As soon as I got home I told my family about my interview experience and how I felt awkward by the interviewer. We all had a good laugh about it and hoped for better ones to come along the way and we still kept our hopes high on hearing from Mr Dapo very soon.

One week after my awkward interview experience I got a call from a long time friend telling me about a short contract job I could apply for with the organisation she works for. She told me the HR department needed my skills to perform some tasks for some clients. I immediately told her I was intrested even though it was just a two months contract. She went ahead to give the HR officer my phone contact for a phone interview with me.I looked forward to the call. I got a call from the HR officer four days after I spoke to my friend, The lady explained,what the organisation needed me to do and she also informed me that it's a two months contract job. She tried to explain the benefits for me taking the job, for example i get to build a relationship with the organisation and I can get references from the managers for future purposes. To me it was a good deal and atleast I wanted the experience too.

I discussed this with my best friend and my family, and I thought to my self what if as I am working at this organisation I get a call from Mr Dapo to resume work immediately since he had told me to prepare and get ready. I was so confused I did not know what to do, so I went ahead to discuss it with my dad, because I always trust his opinion, he said to me he had no problem with me taking the contract job but what if I get a call from Mr Dapo to resume work in a week's time what would I tell the organisation am already working for? "Clara you don't want to fail any of them so you have to think properly and follow your heart,but I will advice you not take the contract job so you don't loose the permanent job you are about to get. Because all you are waiting for is the confirmation email from Mr Dapo telling you when to resume, so I don't think you should risk that for a contract job that is just for 2months"as I listened to my dad I made sense from what he was saying, I actually did not want to dissapoint any of these organisations.  I decided to give my friend a call informing her that I would not be taking the contract job again, because I made a promise to the manager of the organisation I had a successful interview with and I also do not want to fail your organisation too by leaving them when I have resumed work. 

My friend advised me to still take it since I have not been given an offer letter from my previous interview with Mr Dapo. I told my friend I did not want to risk it, I understand she is really concerned but I will just wait to hear from Mr Dapo am very positive about this. 

"oh well Clara that is fine since you have made up your mind I wish you luck and hope to hear from you once you resume at your new place of work. All the best love"  as I hung up I said to my self " I hope I made the right decision....(sigh)".

Two months passed and still nothing from Mr Dapo......

I decided to send him an email "hello Mr Dapo I trust all is fine with you? I have been expecting to hear from you hope all is fine? Hope to hear from you soon in regards to my application,

Thanks.

Clara

I became worried and started having mixed feelings on what might have happened that had made Mr Dapo not contact me, I started discussing with my family and we all started wondering why Mr Dapo took so long for a response. I had to start praying about it asking God questions..."father give me a sign please...". 

I decided to check my email the next day and Mr Dapo had responded to my email  my heart skipped a beat as I was about to open the mail "Dear Clara am so sorry I have not gotten in touch with you these past months, we have been so busy trying to work out on how we can put you on our pay roll system as the company's financial manager informed us that the company's financial budget is very low at this period so he doubt's if employing a new staff to the company would be possible because of the tight budget. I am honestly trying my best to see what can be done, am so sorry but I will get back to you once things have been sorted out. Take care.

Dapo.

As I read those words I felt heart broken and disappointed I didn't even know the right words to respond to his email I just closed my laptop and went to the kitchen to have a glass of water before I told my mum the contents of the email I just got from Mr Dapo,as I told my mum I could see the disappointment all over her face, she tried to encourage me not to worry I should just hope for the best and start re-applying for jobs, I had no choice anyway. I walked up to my room laid on my bed with thoughts of the two job offers I had just missed tears rolled down my eyes.

Woke up the next day feeling so down did not feel like talking to anybody I just wanted to be all alone and have no conversation with anybody. That week was a very quiet one for me cause I kept on hoping I will get a call from Mr Dapo but unfortunately for me 2 weeks passed and no call from him. I started applying for  jobs again, telling friends to be on the look out for me incase they see any job opening that might be applicable to my field of study and experience. I made sure I applied for three jobs or more every day like my dear friend would say...."the hustle is real"  I was just applying non stop hoping to get a call or a respond to any of the emails I had sent to HR managers of organisations in regards to job openings in their company.

Another month passed and still no response from Dapo, it gradually started dawning on me that nothing might possibly be done in other for me to get an offer in that company. I decided to forge ahead for better things.

Just when I was just about to feel all relaxed and accustomed to sitting at home all day applying for jobs online, I got an email from an organisation, the HR manager contacted me asking if I could attend an interview in a week's time,it was an IT firm that was in need of an HR officer . I quickly responded to the email stating " I will be able to make it just give me a time and  date" I got a response immediately for the time and date of the interview. It felt like a breath of fresh air I could not wait to travel and attend this interview and hopefully get this job.

It was now time for me to travel for my interview, anxiety and fear had the best of me. Would I get this job? Can this interview just go fine? I hope I am favoured. Thoughts and thoughts of the interview lingered through my mind all through my trip. 

To be continued........

HR Suggestions/Recommendation

- As a job applicant always make good use of a job offer you get,don't hope on a job you have not been giving an offer letter/resumption date 

- A qualified HR personnel would always confirm from his/her financial manager of the organisation before putting up adverts for job recruitment

- One of the first rule for job applicants is to continuously apply for jobs till you get your dream job

- During an interview process always make eye to eye contact with your interviewer and make sure you sell your self even as you discuss your past job experiences

- As an HR personnel when interviewing job applicants make sure you try to keep it formal and let your interviewee feel comfortable and relaxed. It's not proper for you to make an applicant feel tensed or scared.

Is your HR department your FRIEND or your FOE? It depends on who is asking the question.

When you discuss with human resources professionals, consultants and scholars who study the workplace, you will find two different views of HR.

According to its critics, HR departments can be needlessly bureaucratic, obstructionist, stuck in the “comfort zone” of filling out forms and explaining company benefits, and too closely aligned with the interests of management yet lacking the business knowledge to be effective strategic partners. Dealing with these types of HR departments “is like going to the dentist,” says David Sirota, author of The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want (Wharton School Publishing). When people are asked to rate the quality of different functions within their company, he adds, “IT and HR are repeatedly rated the lowest.”

The more positive view of HR is that it works directly with senior management, providing crucial input into major business transactions such as mergers and acquisitions and restructurings. In this scenario, HR departments have moved away from the traditional role of administrators — many of those responsibilities are now outsourced — to a more creative focus on their prime role, which includes recruiting talent, promoting mobility and career development, and improving organizational effectiveness. “I would not choose HR as a career if we couldn’t be a strategic partner with the business,” says Kathy Gubanich, managing director of HR at The Vanguard Group. “HR is fortunate to report to the CEO of Vanguard…. If we didn’t, it would mean HR’s priorities are being set differently.”

Peter Cappelli, director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources, recently led a discussion at the Center focused on the question: “What is the role of HR now?” From the 1920s on, Cappelli says, HR was seen as a way to advocate for, and protect, employees an orientation that became “quite explicit in the 1950s and beyond as part of an effort by management to prevent unionization.” But more recently, and especially over the past decade, the threat of unionization is much less widespread even as technological advances have made employees more expendable. The “social contract” between employee and employer in which companies provided lifetime employment to its workers in return for loyalty and commitment to company goals has ended.

These days, employees are afraid to quit because of the tight labor market and reluctant to complain about increased work loads for fear of being laid off, says Cappelli. “Companies are pushing more and more work onto employees, and HR departments are becoming the mechanism for doing that. As a result, the idea that HR people are there to represent workers or at least deal objectively with their concerns is pretty much gone.” In addition, with companies continuing to cut back employee benefits such as healthcare and pensions, HR departments have found themselves “increasingly the bearer of bad news to employees.”

Meanwhile, HR issues are very much a part of the press’s business coverage, whether it’s Hewlett-Packard’s recent announcement that it is laying off 14,500 employees (including a number of HR positions) or the breakdown of talks between Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill and Citigroup’s board over the retirement perks available to him under his contract. Weill, who is reportedly interested in starting a private equity fund, had earlier committed to staying on as chairman until April 2006.

Strategy-driven HR: Reality or Goal?

If you look at the history of HR, says James Walker, a consultant on strategic human resources based in La Jolla, Ca., trends in HR such as outsourcing, the establishment of call centers and service centers, and the integration of work-life balance issues usually require about a decade to take hold. For example, “most of us would like to see HR be transformed more rapidly into a business partner, with less emphasis on administrative functions that can now be outsourced,” Walker says. “To achieve that, it’s vital to help key HR individuals accelerate their development of business skills. I think many companies are, in fact, doing this, but not as fast as I would like. There is still a tremendous attraction within HR to the comfort zone of more traditional and functional support-service kinds of relationships.”

The classic area where HR leaders can provide strategic input is “anticipating a merger,” says Walker. “A very well-defined set of opportunities and experiences exists, including assistance in valuing the merger, developing the integration plan, communicating with employees, matching talent, and so forth. Some company HR departments play a key role here. In others, they are still observers, cleaning up the mess afterwards.” HR executives who serve as business partners, he adds, are more likely to be in strategy-driven organizations — professional services firms, financial services firms, high-tech companies and “to some extent pharmaceuticals, the opposite end of the continuum from healthcare companies and manufacturers.” The most talented HR leaders, he says, tend to work “in pockets within a business. They have established a relationship with their client executive in which they are able to have a dialogue and push back as appropriate.”

Over the last 10 to 15 years, HR has begun to have a much bigger impact on how a company operates, says J. Steele Alphin, global personnel executive at Bank of America. 

“To put this in perspective: At Bank of America, we have $28 billion of non-interest expenses. Of that, $15 billion is related to personnel” everything from salaries, incentive plans and fringe benefits to talent retention programs and risk management strategies. “If you can effectively manage those dollars, trying to get as high a return on investment as possible, then you approach the opportunity a lot differently.”

To fulfill his mandate of growing revenue, increasing productivity and developing leadership in the company, Alphin, who reports directly to CEO Ken Lewis, has assembled an HR team that includes managers with degrees in business, HR, psychology and engineering. “Our team looks very similar to any other high-level team in Bank of America,” he says. So when HR sits around the table with other departments, “we don’t talk HR; we talk about the business.”

Lewis, he adds, “looks to us to be business leaders, business partners, the person at the table who will always bring up the critical fact that no one else does.” Alphin, who has 10 direct reports, says that most of those 10 people show up “on replacement charts for other areas of the company. One of our goals is to be a net supplier of talent to Bank of America. We have had personnel executives move into running real estate, branding and transition on acquisitions.”

According to Mark Bieler, a human resources consultant who was executive vice president of HR at Bankers Trust from 1985 to 1999, “without the direct tie to strategy, there is no context for HR work. You have to be completely focused on aligning HR practice, policies and procedures to the overall strategy of the organization.” In the mid-1980s, when Bieler was at Bankers Trust, chairman Charles Sanford converted the company from a commercial bank to an investment bank — “about as radical a cultural shift as one could imagine,” says Bieler. “My role was taking a set of HR practices that I had inherited and making sure they were consistent with where we were trying to take the firm. At the simplest level, that means redesigning pay systems, not so much to pay people more  although investment bankers do tend to make more but to restructure the system to include smaller amounts of fixed compensation and to put more of people’s pay at risk.

“In addition, we became the first bank in the mid-1980s to offer a cafeteria style benefits approach because we wanted people to take charge of their lives, to be more entrepreneurial. Cafeteria benefits were more suited to the type of organization we wanted to be…. We shifted our recruiting goals, changed the way new employees were socialized …. and bit by bit, brick by brick, aligned what we did from the people point of view with the strategy of the company.”

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric and author of a book entitled Winning, noted in a recent interview that “outside of the CEO, HR is the most critical function in any company. Development of leaders is the ultimate responsibility of every CEO and thus is an integral part of HR. I saw my job as allocating people and dollars to opportunities. I wasn’t designing products. I was putting people where I thought they were right for the job. I did that with my partners in HR.” HR evaluation systems, he says, “should be rigorous and nonbureaucratic” and monitored as closely as financial reporting is now monitored under Sarbanes-Oxley.

While many HR professionals say their role is to be a strategic partner with senior management, critics question whether this is possible given that HR people often lack the business skills to understand strategy or their role in implementing it. Furthermore, some senior managers aren’t interested in having HR as a strategic partner; they just want the department to go out and hire the people they (the managers) want.  

“If top management doesn’t see value in having HR as a strategic partner and if HR can’t think out of the box in that role then the partnership is probably not going to happen,” says Wharton management professor Nancy Rothbard. She cites the case of a woman who heads HR at an in-house call center for a large financial services firm who is “constantly experimenting with new ways to help the company achieve its overall goals,” such as trying out new tools to better select employees and sitting through hours of training sessions to test their effectiveness. Overall, says Rothbard, such an approach “means committing resources in terms of top management’s time as well as the time of managers a level below.” The effort, she says, “took guts on HR’s part because it wasn’t clear there was going to be a definite payoff.”

Of course becoming a “partner” with senior management doesn’t always happen. At Vanguard, says Gubanich, “you have to earn your way to the table. I might also say that rather than a strategic partner, we are more of a strategic enabler. We need to understand the business deeply where it is now and where it wants to go. This is important because sometimes I think we get caught up in, ‘What is the coolest program?’ or ‘Should we be designing something new?’ The key question has to be: ‘Was HR successful at moving the company in the direction it wanted to go?'”

HR at Vanguard has a number of strategic imperatives, Gubanich adds, “such as hiring the right people in the right place in the right time; looking for breadth and depth of leadership talent; maintaining the right culture for the organization; risk mitigation and operational excellence…. For example, if someone at Vanguard wants to create a new business, we talk about the people and programs needed to get there. Do you have the leadership necessary for that? Do you have the training programs? Do you know how to take a group and say, ‘We are now going to do things this way instead of that way’? What do you want to accomplish? Will you be sales oriented or service oriented? What are the competencies required for the job? Will you focus on external or internal hiring or a combination of the two? And so forth.”

The same orientation exists at Air Products, an $8 billion industrial gas, chemical and home health care company headquartered outside of Allentown, Pa. Vince Kraft, director of industrial relations, reports to the vice president of human resources. “When people say HR is non-strategic and does not understand the business, here it is just the opposite,” Kraft says. “We are imbedded in a variety of operational issues especially in the field. We are out there among the employees, customers and the distribution network, and we are seen by senior management as very valuable, especially when it comes to areas like professional development and succession plans.”

In some companies, HR’s influence extends beyond their own departments. “Outside of the marketing function,” notes Bank of America’s Alphin, “the personnel function at Bank of America has one of the biggest responsibilities relating to brand. For example, every year we hire about 40,000 people externally. Each time we interview someone, we are looking for talent. That person, in turn, has a chance to see our company. That’s a branding opportunity. If you interview people, even if you do not hire them, the experience should be such that they would want to bank with us.”  

A Two-Tiered System

Critics of the way HR has developed over the past decade suggest that HR has become a “handmaiden of management,” more concerned with carrying out directives from above than supporting the needs of employees.

Bieler sees “some truth” to that claim but says it’s “largely because of the decentralization of the functions. The most common model today in large corporations is a smaller, highly expert central staff and then masses of HR people in distributed HR organizations throughout the company. Their reporting relationship may either be dual  to the head of the line operating office and to the head of HR or may be direct. But at the end of the day, the power dynamic seems to favor HR’s relationship to their senior line executive. This distribution of the HR function has many advantages but one of the downsides is a decrease in the view of HR as playing an ombudsperson role in the organization.”

According to Air Products’ Kraft, “the climate change” toward HR being perceived as pro-management “began when we started to outsource what is generally described as administrative duties, but what are generally regarded by employees as positive employee relations such as help with medical insurance, leave and vacation issues. The day-to-day contract between employees and management of keeping each other informed has been relegated to either voicemail or email as opposed to conversations. HR began to be perceived by the employee base as a necessary evil.”

Kraft also notes a tendency to treat people as “numbers rather than as individuals, which is not the fault of the company but really the fault of financial pressure from Wall Street. It’s very hard not to feel the pressure to cut costs….”

When Leon Cornelius, a director of GM’s labor relations staff, first started at a GM plant in 1978, “all the HR issues were handled right there, in the plant,” he says. Employees could ask questions about benefits, compensation, and “if you were sick or somebody passed away, there were people who you could talk to about it and find a sympathetic ear. It wasn’t strategic; it was more transactional, but it had that personal touch. Now it’s all about going to the web and calling 1-800.”

The system could be better if it were two-tiered, Kraft suggests. “Somebody has to develop an alternative dispute resolution system or some mechanism that allows employees a voice…. I still view that as a part of the HR function, although it doesn’t seem to be happening.”

Kevin Sullivan, an employee relations consultant at IBM, acknowledges allegations of HR bias towards management, but points to the company’s appeals process as an effort to “maintain the integrity of the system.” Once employees exercise their right to challenge a performance appraisal, salary decision or other personnel matter, that challenge is handled in one of two ways either through the appointment of an investigator, assigned by management, to look into the complaint, or through a panel review. The panel, which is available to U.S.based employees, consists of five individuals three employees and two managers, all of them randomly selected who hear the case and make a decision. “That system gets used. Our employees are not shy about coming forward.”

In many companies, Sullivan adds, employees feel that the social contract between the company and its workforce no longer exists and that “employees are on their own. What companies must do is offer a compelling case to the individual as to why he or she would want to work there. In our case, we emphasize our skills training, our workplace flexibility options (including work-at-home), our commitment to diversity, our focus on performance differentiation, our leading-edge technology and our leadership development…. You have to show employees that opportunities exist.”

For Mark Bieler, the bottom line is that “the quality of HR functions correlates more than anything to the quality of culture and management they are supporting. If you put me in an environment as head of HR in a company that fundamentally doesn’t respect people and has a short term orientation toward them, I would have a difficult time either championing the needs of the people or furthering the objectives of the organization through HR policy or practice.”   

Seeing the Employee as Customer

According to the August 2005 cover story in Fast Company magazine, entitled “Why We Hate HR,” HR people are not interested in an “open-minded approach” when it comes to making exceptions to company policies, including pay schedules. “Instead, they pursue standardization and uniformity in the face of a workforce that is heterogeneous and complex…. Bureaucrats everywhere abhor exceptions not just because they open up the company to charges of bias but because they require more than rote solutions.”

Rather than sending the message that the company values “high-performing employees and is focused on rewarding and retaining them,” the article says, “HR departments benchmark salaries, function by function and job by job, against industry standards, keeping pay — even that of the stars — within a narrow band determined by competitors. HR, in other words, forfeits long-term value for short-term cost efficiency.” The article poses this question: “Who does your company’s vice president of human resources report to? If it’s the CFO — and chances are good it is — then HR is headed in the wrong direction.”

Sirota has a different way of getting at the same issue: If you think of HR as having three roles, says Sirota, the first is to carry out administrative functions. The second is to serve as strategic partner, and the third is to see the employee as customer. The most important part of that customer-centric view involves “working with management to develop policies, practices and philosophies geared toward creating a truly motivated and dedicated workforce,” says Sirota. Generally speaking, “in many organizations, that role is more notable by its absence.”

When HR managers “say they want to be business partners,” suggests Sirota, “what they mean is they want to work for management. Most companies say employees are our greatest asset, but what they really mean is they are our biggest cost.” HR should “be proactive. Walk around the company, find out the issues, just as you would do with customers. External customers are surveyed regularly. HR should be surveying their internal customers as well.” 

GM’s Cornelius agrees that “what’s missing in today’s workplace is the view that HR is there for the employees. When younger people in the organization come to me for advice I say, ‘Have you talked to anybody in HR about this?’ and they roll their eyes and say, ‘Why should I bother to do that?'” But it doesn’t have to be that way, Cornelius adds. “An HR person can handle a hard conversation with an employee about what he or she needs to do to improve, but that employee can still walk away thinking: ‘If I do these things, I will have somebody there who will help me move around the company or get me positioned for a promotion.'”

HR also tends to push onto managers a number of functions that could be done by HR staff, such as finding and downloading the forms needed when an employee retires. “HR has dumped a number of jobs on other functions that they used to do themselves,” Cornelius says. But he also has praise for specific HR policies including, for example, those dealing with layoffs. “I give GM credit in situations where there is a downsizing. They stand tall when it comes to the employees. The situation is handled in a very humane way.” And where major long-term issues are involved, such as restructurings and joint ventures, “HR is actively a part of those strategic discussions, along with labor relations. HR brings value” to the table.

Bank of America is taking the idea of serving employees one step further. The company just opened a facility near Charlotte, N.C., which provides a flexible work environment and allows people who live in nearby communities to spend a day or two every week at that location, rather than commuting an hour or more each way into the city. “It’s a new concept and we have gotten very good response to it,” says Alphin. “In addition, we are already seeing increases in productivity among employees who use this option.” Alphin points to another initiative at Bank of America instituted this year — a broad-based incentive plan that will pay out between $500 and $3,000 to eligible employees from mid-level managers to their associates, in addition to existing incentive programs already in place. He predicts that some companies will start insourcing HR functions that they previously outsourced. “We have about 1,200 people in HR now but that number will soon grow to 1,500 because we are bringing some staffing back in house — including recruiting — that we had outsourced. We liked the pricing but we didn’t like the quality,” Alphin says. “You always have to look at that tradeoff.”

Performance-based Pay

Given the recent controversies over huge compensation packages at public companies, pay-for-performance continues to be a hot-button issue for everyone from CEOs down to lower level employees. According to Walker, “the leading-edge thinking now is much more on segmenting work across the company and also segmenting the work force” in ways that let differences be defined and valued. “This allows HR to move away from a system of ‘everyone is treated the same’ to one where people can be treated differently according to business needs, individual preferences and performance. That’s a trend, starting with IBM and working through a lot of companies.”

IBM’s Sullivan would agree. The philosophy of the company toward its 330,000 employees “is to pay our best people like the best people in the industry are paid. The rest of our employees get paid competitively. We also have a performance appraisal system in which we hold people accountable. That’s the underpinning of the system, whether it is pay, promotions or the opportunity for stock options and other awards and recognition. It is all based on performance.”

At Vanguard, with its 11,000 employees, “we describe ourselves as a pay-for-performance organization,” adds Gubanich. “As such, we believe that the top performers should be rewarded more. We do all kinds of analysis on pay and total compensation where it should fall on the individual level as well as the job aggregate level. In addition, it can’t just be all about the individuals. It is valuable to also have team and company incentives.”

Issues of pay and performance are now reaching boards of directors as well, says Bieler. “One key factor in the evolution of HR departments has been Sarbanes-Oxley. At least for the head of HR, this has radically changed the relationship with the board’s compensation committee. Recently, as part of my work redesigning two companies’ compensation systems, I dealt with consultants hired by the compensation committee. That hadn’t happened before. So issues around pay — including sensitivity to full disclosure of executive perks, for example — are in the forefront these days, as are issues of management development and succession. Sarbanes-Oxley has had a profound effect on the relationship between the board and the company, in which the HR function plays a key role.”   

The question arises, adds Walker, as to where a board gets guidance on matters of corporate pay, perks, etc. “Is it from corporate HR or does the board hire its own consultants directly?” With regards to compensation, “HR executives should be doing the analysis and bringing information and advice to the board. If you want HR to be a strategic partner, it can’t be just with the CEO; it has to be with the board as well.” But pay issues are not always easy to administer, especially at places like universities and hospitals, where, as Bieler says, “there are numerous constituencies, all of whom think they are in charge. It is hard to get your arms around a clear cut strategy.” Cappelli suggests that one approach to setting pay, “left over from this idea of looking out for employees, is to have a model of equality: Treat everyone roughly the same, especially in issues of pay. Of course places that do this get complaints from top managers saying, ‘I lost these people because HR wouldn’t let me pay them enough.’ Top managers, who for the most part are high achievers, believe people should be paid based on their own performance.”

The problem, says Cappelli, “is that perceived inequities drive people crazy. It’s one thing to say, ‘This person is a star, pay him or her more or he might quit.’ What happens next? People who discover this person is being paid more [within an equal pay system] start to complain. So you move to a model where everyone is paid based on performance. But this approach requires an objective assessment of performance that everyone must be willing to buy into. That’s the hard part.”

Source: Wharton school (Human resources) University of Pennsylvania 05/08/2005

How to reinvigorate the human side of human resources

Human resources is not just about admin and hard metrics. Getting the human side of HR right is just as crucial for a successful business. 

Human resources needs to take the lead in creating and encouraging a culture of collaboration and a cohesive team, particularly with an increasingly mobile and distributed workforce. It shouldn’t be defined by admin and red tape.

Sure, getting the management side right and driving efficiency in the workplace are certainly important, but they’re not the be-all and end-all of human resources. What about the human side of HR? Human human resources, so to speak.

HR should be about making everyone’s working lives a little bit simpler, better and happier.

All together now

First, it helps having all of your HR documentation and employee information in one place.

Stashing it all away in filing cabinets means that every time you need to look something up regarding a particular employee, you’ll need to rifle through your files. But storing the information in a simple, online system allows you to quickly search what you’re looking for, giving you an overview of your team and helping you with resource planning.

And with a self-service system, employees can update their own details as they change, ensuring that all of your employee information is up to date.

An easily accessible hub of information – contact details, job description, location, team, certificates, etc – works alongside the tools we’ve written about previouslyto give you and your employees not only a more collaborative working environment, but also a step in the right direction in fostering a sound company culture.

Putting the ‘human’ back in human resources

Having all of your employee information in one place also lets you perform the softer duties of HR and helps you develop your employees more intelligently.

• Birthdays. 
  
  With each employee’s birthday on your centralised system, you can easily plan a little something for each person’s birthday together with your colleagues. You might make a card, bake a cake, let them have a day off, buy them theatre tickets, treat them to lunch, get them a year’s subscription to a mail-order chocolate tasting club… It doesn’t have to break the bank, but doing something small to recognise someone’s birthday can make all the difference.

• Training.
  
   Making a note of training courses each employee has completed not only allows you to track the development and skills of your employees, but also gives you the opportunity to follow up on that training. Asking questions when they’ve completed the training – what did you learn from it? Did you enjoy it? How would you improve it? – helps it stick and demonstrates your commitment to continuous learning.

• Interests. 
  
  Building on both of these, you might also encourage employees to put some of their major interests and achievements, both in-work and out-of-work, on the system. Maybe Mary’s learning Japanese, and perhaps Mark’s got an NVQ in sports massage; whatever it is, it reminds you that you’re working with unique individuals, not economic units. You might use this information to guide their future development and training or use it as inspiration for their next birthday present – perhaps a sushi making lesson for Mary.

Balancing hard with soft

Of course, human resources is not just about the soft side of things; like any other senior management position, the HR manager needs to focus on the bottom line. But getting all of your information in order and focussing on the human side of human resources and the little things, like birthdays and personal interests, can make a big difference too.

The soft, non-linear side of human resources helps boost performance by treating people like people, encouraging their personal and professional development and trying to make their day-to-day working life a little friendlier and more human.

Source:  Toby Knott 26/6/2014