Trust in HR is historically low, primarily because most employees see HR as advocates for the business who are focused on risk and compliance, rather than advocates for employees and their needs. A 2022 Crucial Learning survey found that 75% of employees don’t trust that their HR leader cares about their needs. Just 9% felt their HR leader would advocate for them, and 47% didn’t feel safe in confiding or getting assistance from HR.
The profession also gets a bad rap from corporate colleagues and workplace commentators. Common criticisms include: HR practitioners are ‘not strategic enough’, ‘lack commercial nous’, and are ‘not tech savvy’.
Read more: Dear HR haters: A response to The Telegraph
How much justification there is for such HR bashing divides the room. But if HR is to succeed, it needs to find a way to meet its detractors and build trust and engagement with employees. In short, HR needs a PR makeover, both inside and outside the business. Here are a few strategies that might help.
Get stakeholders on board
HR professionals need to develop a strategy for working with all internal stakeholders. Who are the key people you need to influence – and what’s their perception of HR right now? Can you nurture internal ambassadors, to spread the message about the work HR is trying to do? Internal focus groups can also help build dialogue and get to grips with fears or concerns.
Tailor communication
A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work when it comes to communicating people and culture initiatives across the business. Find a style and strategy that’s right for each audience and function.
Someone at a higher education provider recently told me why they had decided not to go for a ‘big bang’, top-down launch of a new approach to resolving workplace conflict: they were concerned that the academic community, which thrives on discourse and debate, would not take well to being ‘told what to do’. Instead, the team rolled the new process out slowly, building on existing relationships, to allay concerns and build trust and engagement.
Celebrate successes
In the past, HR was the department to go to when things went wrong; good news stories were thin on the ground. However, the most effective people teams are learning to celebrate their positive impact.
Central marketing and communications teams can be HR’s biggest allies when it comes to highlighting important culture change initiatives. These colleagues can be a valuable source of advice about how to get your message across. Regularly celebrating the incredible impact your people and culture function is having is vital to ensure strong and consistent messaging around employer brand, the employee value proposition and customer experience.
Embrace storytelling
Learn how to tell your story. A compelling narrative can help create empathy, trust and engagement. Effective storytelling means moving away from trying to convince people with facts and figures, and shifting towards telling relatable stories that illustrate what the changes HR is trying to make look like on the ground.
Could you video employees talking about how they have put one of the company’s core values into practice, for example? Case studies, media articles and award entries are a great way to shift perceptions externally, and generate pride and engagement internally.
Modern people and culture teams offer so much value. We need to sing about that value-add from the roof tops. When HR embraces the best of PR, the reputation of HR grows: the people function becomes more trusted, more understood and more widely valued. If HR wants to make a real difference, it can no longer afford to hide its light under a bushel.
David Liddle is president of the People and Culture Association
This article was published in the July/August 2024 edition of HR magazine.
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