HR: Much more to do; Much more to add!!

Below mentioned is purely my belief. The following thoughts of mine are penned down without taking the present HR structure into consideration; lest it may side-track me from my vision for my function.

It all started as time and book keeping department in the 1940s which later forced itself into handling the militant IR and personal administration in the 1970s, but the sad state is we HR, have never really forced ourselves out of PM&IR into HR.

Technology in the past 5 years has advanced manifold (remember the times when you had Nokia 1100; well please don’t think that it was ages back; it was just in 2005). Amidst all this we guys have managed to force out title from PM&IR to HR&IR; without deeply changing our core work, attitudes or style. What beckons now by the business can never be achieved with PM&IP nature, and therefore metamorphosis is the call for the day. The way we organize ourselves in an organization speaks volumes of the contribution to the business. No wonder does the HR structure of Google rarely matches with the rest organizations; keeping the policing activities of HR aside. On one side organizations are talking about business alignment (a never ending topic) and on the other side Google HR has started peoples’ lab so as to ensure that HR targets the right activities and that too strategically. We cannot dream ourselves into a character: we must hammer and forge ourselves into one. Every successful organization did what no one else was willing to do! (Anonymous)

This article would describe my vision of HR org structure and sufficient rationale for the same.

My vision for the following HR Verticals:

1.HR Strategy & Planning: This team will be the guidance team overarching the whole HR function. It also should be responsible for troubleshooting which should cut across all the other HR sub-functions. Like a CoE (Centre of Excellence); this teams’ main task is to add strategic intent by improvising the HR processes and evaluation mechanisms. They define the goals and strategies for the year and ensure that these percolate down till the soil. This group should comprise of experts in the field who have the potential to dissect a process with a strategic view. This team will ultimately be the team of all-stars who after rich experience in the field have risen to this strategic role. Keeping a watch on business should be their work and the interventions which add value to the business should be their actionable items. They also form a part of all the committees which a business may have; this is to increase the participation of our function and also possess a sharp knowledge of the business.

2.Talent Acquisition group: TAG should have the following Sub-Verticals.

a.     Employer Branding Group: Responsible for all elements which constitute employer branding; In short, information flowing from within the company to the outside with regards to employability should be vetted by them. Be it campus recruitment, or be it a newspaper advertisement, employer branding team should be the heart and soul of the TAG. This should be a group of experts comprising of psychologists and HR guys with good strategic intent.

b.     Recruiting Team: This team should be a highly qualified in tools such as NLP, and other psychometric tools. It is also advisable to have a data churner in this team (a person who is good at data analysis)

c.     Analytics: TAG heavy reliance should be on the Analytics. We expect that the decision making in the future to be more analytical and fact based rather than presumptive judgement. Analytics team would be the team who can be relied on any kind of data, starting from individuals’ social media pages, to the preferences of people belonging to a particular area. This team services both branding team and the recruiting team.

d.     Data & Cost Management Group: To ensure that proper data management of the Analytics as well as the recruitment related work is handled well; DCMG should be certified in data management. Speed of delivery of any task is what we look at from DCMG with TAG. With the paper work being outsourced to soft copies, so data management could be the core work on which all the above 3 teams would rely upon.  DCMG team should also be responsible for the non-hiring costs associated with recruitment by having an in-house system for travels, bookings, souvenirs, etc.

3.Talent Management Group: TMG should have the following sub-verticals:

e.     Succession Planners Team: A team of employees looking only into succession planning of the whole company. This should also include succession planning from within the company for any expansion projects, etc. The motive being, no leader should he hired, but only groomed. This team should ensure quality leaders with the help of their analytics team. Bridging the Gaps of an identified successor should be the responsibility of the SPT.

f.      Career Planners Team: This sub-vertical should not only be a standalone vertical but also be embedded into each business. This team should take care of career planning of each and every individual.  The size of this team should be huge to the tune of 1 per 100 employees. They should be responsible for bridging the skill/competency gap by identifying the needs of an employee. At any point in time, the career planning for an employee should be ready based on his current capabilities as well as a plan for the future. This team by default will also handle the transfers due to personal requests as well as a result of their chartered career plan. All the analytics required for a particular employee will be handled by the career planner which shall help him make efficient decisions.

g.     Performance Management Group: Aiding in high performance of an employee should be the most fundamental task of HR internally. A centrally located team shall strategic inputs to the career and succession planners with regard to competencies, capturing detailed performance, provide consulting support to other TMG teams as well as work closely with the OD team to create a high performance culture.

4.Performance Facilitation Group: The erstwhile L&D should be renamed as Performance Facilitation Team and should have the following sub-verticals under it. This vertical should ideally take charge of the whole process of performance facilitation.

h.     Performance Issues Identification & Solution Developing Team: This is the erstwhile Needs identification team; this team should be responsible identifying the performance issues with the help of career and successor planners. This team could be centralized and have a monthly agenda of identifying various performance related issues across the company; this team would not only be responsible for identifying the performance issues but also will be responsible for developing solutions for such an issue. The erstwhile span of solutions was in the form of CRT and WBT which as per my vision needs to be redefined. The solution should apart from the traditional stuff, should also comprise of personal counselling, interacting with the employees manager to develop a POA for enhancing the performance of the employee. This team supports the career planner.

i.      Tutors Group: This group shall comprise of counsellors and solutions delivery guys. The solutions developed by the PIISD team shall be put to practical use to an employee by this group. They are responsible for training, counselling, thereby bridging the gaps involved in employees’ performance. Their core focus will be on Delivery of the solutions and the mode in which the delivery would produce the best results. This group can comprise of a mix of internal and external tutors depending on the solution.

j.      Closing The Loop Team: Erstwhile L&D never focussed on closing the Loop; meaning evaluating the training outcomes. Heavy reliance on this is required. A separate team is required for this as it forms the core group of PFG. This sub-vertical should be embedded for the purpose of ensuring that facilitation occurs truly and not superficially. This team is responsible for evaluating employees after the performance facilitating sessions. This team not only evaluates but also trouble shoots to the PIISD group for any further issues during evaluation. This team works in sync with the career planning group to ensure both the team’s objectives are met.

5.Compensation & Benefits: Should have the following sub-verticals

a.    Compensation & Benefits Design team: Compensation & Benefits form is an important sub-function of HR which adds value to the business directly by mitigating costs through strategies. Till date in my life, I have seen two kinds of companies, one which offers on lump-sum salary and asks the employee to fetch everything and the other is to give you a moderate salary and take care of employees’ necessities such as house, car, cook, etc. I still don’t know which a better model out of the two is but I can sure bet that the best model is the one which is cost effective at the same time a good retention strategy. This vertical should be most aware of the changes in the demography, because cost saving strategies could erupt out of the percentage of skilled pooled available in the market. Apart from the two types of practices mentioned above, there should a flexi compensation system which should identify the needs of an individual and pay accordingly. I do not mean to pay the needy a higher amount, but the form of pay out of salaries could be a great retention tool in itself. For example: Nowadays many employees may have pending loans to clear which bear a high interest rate; to be precise, take an example of a management trainee who has an education loan of 10 lacs at 10% rate of interest. The company can devise two possible strategies (not exhaustive list of strategies):

                                          i.    The company can clear the loan by one time pay on behalf of the employee and then deduct the same from the employees’ salary with a lesser rate of interest say 6%. In this way the employee retention rate increase not because of the loan but mostly because of the value deriving out of the company.

                                        ii.    The other possible strategy could be letting the employee decide his CTC breakup. Example if the employee prefers that he gets 5 lacs as Joining bonus of his CTC, the company may pay him that much with necessary deductions made every month to compensate for the fixed CTC limit. This 5 lacs, can be used by the employee to clear out major part of his loan (huge pay-out in the beginning brings down the interest for the remaining principal amount thereby bringing the loan tenure down). These could be some strategies to twist the compensation structure a little bit but could deliver value in terms of employee commitment to the organization, and its profitability.

b.    Analytics Team: Each persons’ preference towards compensation may vary based the employees sex/cultural differences/interests and priorities, so it is advisable that an analytics team try to have few predictions made as to a person with x background and y priorities have a preference for z salary. Such predictions may help come the team come to terms with giving an employee the salary type of his choice. This team would also be of immense use while doing a compensation study for expats.

6.Event Management: A separate vertical dedicated to fun at work activities should be incorporated into the HR field. With more and more organizations trying to strike the ‘wow’ factor for employees’ it is best when these activities are conducted professionally. Demarcating the HR professionals from that with event management professionals is what I mean by putting the right person in the right chair. Every activity which can bring the wow feeling in an employee should be handled by this group. These events include:

                                          i.    Induction

                                         ii.    On-Boarding

                                        iii.    Fun activities at work

                                        iv.    Day Celebrations (World Health Day, etc)

                                         v.    Events specific to one person (like a person getting promoted, married, birthday, resignation, etc.)

7.SS: SS meaning shared services. Most organizations have HR doing routine transactional work such as payroll, attendance, housekeeping, travel, etc. Since these are essential and form an active part of employee well-being and at the same time their nature of work is the same across various businesses, it is advised that these verticals are clubbed under shared services. The SS model could help distinguish between two different types of work (Policing and Strategic types of HR) and hence place people appropriately so as to increase efficiency.

With the above mentioned verticals and with right attitude and supervision, we HR should be in a value creation and value driver position to the business.