Renegade HR is really about two things:
- Hiring great people.
- Enabling them to do great things that drive your business.
Hiring great people can be difficult. It takes time to get it right.
If you want to be a better HR pro today, find out what’s stopping your employees from doing great things. If you can, ask them directly. Speak to their managers, too.
Once you find out what they need to do great things, get it for them.
Maybe it’s more direction and feedback. That’s something that should obviously come from their manager. But part of your job as an HR Renegade is coach managers on how to better manage.
Maybe a policy or procedure is getting in the way. Find out how to get rid of it, if possible.
A rising tide lifts all boats. Help your managers and the people they lead do better work, and you’ll be a better HR pro.
Communication among the manager and employee is the key to maximizing an employee’s potential. HR needs to put a process in place pushing the managers to communicate with their employees on what they need to work on and what they are doing well at. Performance appraisals are definitely necessary, but only meeting with an employee once a year just doesn’t cut it. Meet monthly, semi-monthly, quarterly, etc. to make sure the employee knows where their focus needs to lie to be an excellent employee.
@ReviewSNAP – Interesting that you immediately suggest a process. If anything, I sometimes think HR is too dependent on processes as it is. We’re burdened by them.
I think the concept of a “communication process” sounds too restrictive and ignores personal communication styles and preferences. Would I would really like to see is a training program that all managers who are new to a management role or new to the organization go through that covers things like communication, feedback, etc.
And then I’d like to see managers held accountable as part of their performance for doing the things that are talked about during that training.
I think that you nailed it in Point #2, “Enabling them to be great”. I think that is the part that most managers and companies find difficult, how do you handle a ‘rock star’. As you mentioned, sometimes processes can get in the way, and ideas and energy can be stifled when that happens. I think that the example has to be set from the top down, and leaders should empower their employees to make decisions that will have an impact on the business, and execute on their ideas.
You are right, the less processes the better. As long as a manager is in some way held accountable for frequently communicating to their employees that would work as well. It would be nice to see training programs be implemented, but that’s just not going to happen at most companies. When someone is promoted or hired to a managerial role companies most often expect the person to hit the ground running and assume that since they were promoted or hired to that position than they already have a strong sense of communication. But, as ideal as that would be it’s just not the case. I agree that a strong training program would be nice, but the question is will companies actually put it in place.
@Mike M. – Empowering employees to make decisions… I love it!
@ReviewSNAP – Accountability is definitely the most important part. I think at many organizations, managers are measured on technical results but not on management ability, and that can have some pretty bad effects for the teams they lead.
@ReviewSNAP – I agree with you on Accountability, and training. Most managers are promoted because of their superior technical skills, sales successes, or whatever skill is unique to their industry. They are not promoted because they will make good managers. It’s a different skill set and should be recognized as such. The best players usually do not make the best coaches. Companies need to recognize the difference between technical aptitude and ability to manage and lead a team. Both are valuable, but completely different.
You nailed it!