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Much ado has been made recently about HR’s failure in the way the USDA handled an employee relations situation involving Shirley Sherrod.
If you’re not familiar with the case yet, here’s a great run-down from Frank Roche at Know HR.
Let’s say you’re in human resources at the USDA. And by hook or by crook you end up hearing a sound bite from a speech that one of your most senior employees gave in March, in which, if you only listened to the few seconds of the clip, make it appear that she discriminated against a farmer because of his race.
What do you do?
- Recommend that she be fired immediately without reviewing all the facts?
- Talk to her and ask her about the totality of her comments?
- Wilt like a pansy in the Georgia heat because some questionable media types said you should fire her? So you do?
Shirley Sherrod got fired. Then, when the facts became clear, she got an apology. Sorta kinda.
(Click here to read Frank’s whole post.)
So the HR interwebz is blowing up around the case, talking about how HR pros at the USDA should have been more involved and that they failed massively.
HR’s point of failure, though, happened long before this case.
Creating effective leaders
Managers have more leverage over employee motivation, culture and business success than anyone else in an organization. If we really care about improving the performance of the companies we support, our number one job is giving managers the skills to be excellent leaders (before they need them).
Should HR have been more involved when this situation arose? Sure.
But their most important task should be creating a culture of effective leadership in which they don’t need to be involved in these situations when they do happen.
What do you think?
Hey Chris – Great points you make and a wonderful question.
I tend to agree in that HR’s purpose is enabling the company and it’s people to succeed. When situations like this come up, HR will not always be there, or be the quickest to respond. This is where leadership among management and senior level employees is so important.
I agree that HR should have been more involved, but HR’s role should be proactive, instead of reactive. Not only will they command more respect, but they will avoid a number of issues – possibly this situation as well.
@Rich – You just boiled down many paragraphs of rambling on my part into one very clearly statement: Be proactive instead of reactive.
Thanks, dude!