More than 50% of HR professionals who took part said they spent much more time communicating objectives than helping to set them.
This failure to be seen as relevant is being presented as evidence that HR departments are facing an endemic crisis. Despite the efforts of so many professional HR practitioners, it is suggested that their best endeavours are not halting the ongoing decline of HR involvement and influence in organisational decision-making.
With the lack of financial investment and organisations shrinking rather than growing, there is an evolving perception that HR's strength and influence are directly proportional to the availability of financial investment in the workforce – or in simple terms, we are only as good as our budget. Consequently, as the purse strings tighten, so the HR role shrinks.
I don't sign up to this. I am not a 'fair-weather HR director' who can only contribute when I have money to spend and resources to use. In the cycle of growth and recession our most recent bumper years have passed and right now we are falling headlong into austerity. But that doesn't mean HR's role diminishes; it just means it changes.
Tim Rice in his lyrics for 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' warned that after the "seven years of plenty" there would be a very different challenge for the people of Egypt when famine would "stalk the land". Yet the chief executive of Egypt (Pharaoh) decided he would save his nation by picking someone to contribute to both challenges. I don't think they had HR departments in those days, but if they did Pharaoh would be saying, 'I want something new. I want my HR to have "a flair for economic planning"'.
What is my evidence for believing that HR can work in any environment? Most recently research carried out by Towers Watson has confirmed that a third of companies plan to increase their use of HR technology and 44% of firms intend changing the structure of their HR department this year. This is to encourage growth and drive further efficiencies even whilst still within the recession. Greater process integration, increased quality and lower end HR costs are all credible goals for us in these lean years.
As a profession founded upon the backs of bureaucrats and the values of regimented processes and detailed record keeping we now have an opportunity to use this recession to develop our pursuit of strategic involvement and decision making to a new level. There's no question these findings are troubling. The size of the change is unlike anything we've ever seen before.
We need to do three things
Change from being Critics to Co-workers. The thing that's troubling to me is not the statistics and the research I have referred to. I've lived with these types of analysis for years. The statistics don't frighten me. What's scares me is how little we are doing to address the loss of influence that these results show. Rather than getting into the issues we're too quick to look in and place blame. It's a lot easier to sit in your chair shouting at the Referee that get involved and make the decisions.
Move from Uniformity to Unanimity I've yet to meet a single manager who didn't struggle with the individualism of employees and how they want to be treated. This struggle is a part of the journey into leadership yet all too often HR wants to present the idea that there is an ideal solution for every situation, a rules-driven, legalistic, head disconnected from heart, sit up straight and pay attention, type of solution. It's no wonder so many managers walk away from the HR office more confused than they entered it
Deliver solutions not scenarios Managers and staff are constantly searching for solutions, and for someone to genuinely take time to understand what they really need. The problem in HR is we don't always see managers' needs as opportunities. By engaging with managers in personal relationships, considering personal situations we will become influential without realising it.
Graham White (pictured) is HR director at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals
