Ask many corporate workers what they think of human resources, and they’ll rattle off a litany of stereotypes: HR is incompetent, any brush with HR spells bad news, or that HR will always toe the company line. Above all else, people tend to believe that HR represents the employer and simply can’t be trusted to have their best interests at heart. Multiple studies have found that, on average, nearly half of employees don’t trust HR or feel comfortable confiding in their HR leaders.
But the field has undergone many changes over the last two decades, as it has evolved to accommodate the new world of work and the growing demands of employees. Of course, while many companies have rebranded and reimagined the scope of their HR departments, the field remains a spectrum, with some roles hewing closer to the stereotypes that many employees associate with HR.
“On one side, you have the leading edge,” says Lars Schmidt, the founder of HR consultancy Amplify, and a Fast Company contributor. “They’re involved in decision-making; they’re asked to attend all of the meetings because they’re viewed as a strategic value add to all of the teams. The other side is more transactional, reactive, administrative—the punch line function that I think generally has a stigma. [But] a majority of practitioners and teams are somewhere in the middle.”
Even as HR attracts fresh talent and more palatable monikers like “people operations,” it continues to occupy a precarious position in many workplaces—and with a reputation that precedes it. “I make lots of jokes,” says Colleen McCreary, who has held multiple chief people officer roles, most recently at fintech startup Credit Karma. “[Because] at the end of the day, I’m still the HR lady.”
After all, even the most enlightened HR departments have to contend with one of the essential challenges of the job: striking a delicate balance between employees’ interests and the company’s objectives. “Progressive chief people officers today view their role as is finding that balance,” Schmidt says. “It’s not always easy, and you’re not always going to get that right. Obviously you’re representing the company, but you’re also having to advocate on behalf of employees.”
Bridging that gap starts with a deeper partnership between top leaders and the HR team; without a supportive CEO, an HR leader is unlikely to be all that effective. “You can have the most amazing chief people officer in the world,” says Schmidt. “But if they’re working under a CEO who doesn’t believe in the function, they’re going to be hamstrung.”
The relationship between a CEO and HR chief also has a bearing on how the rest of the organization perceives the department—and the employees it serves. “I have always reported to the CEO, and I felt very strongly that people are almost always the highest cost at a company,” says McCreary. “So, why wouldn’t you have somebody fairly senior that the CEO is relying on around your most expensive line item? It [also] sends a message to the organization. If [HR] reports to legal, it’s a compliance function, and if it reports to finance, it’s just a budgeting line item.”
But this is just the first step to creating a more progressive HR practice, albeit a crucial one. Leaders in this space point to a number of other ways in which companies can build and sustain an HR operation that not only centers employees, but also strives to gain their trust.
Embracing both internal and external transparency
There are many aspects of the HR function that are conducted behind closed doors out of necessity, from internal investigations to termination meetings. This is, in part, to protect employees, but also a result of the field’s origins in compliance, which makes HR professionals especially risk-averse. “A big element of HR was policy against the few,” Schmidt says. “There’s a view of: What’s the worst thing that an employee can do? Let’s assume everybody is going to do that and create policies that safeguard the business against that.” The more progressive wing, on the other hand, takes the view that HR policy should be more universal and beneficial to the majority of employees, he adds.
Many companies don’t have a clearly documented process for investigations or are reticent to divulge details to employees. But leaders who want to be more transparent with employees can offer more insight into how an internal investigation is typically carried out, or how their company handles low performing employees, without infringing on confidentiality. “In the absence of information, employees will fill the gaps with their own understandable concerns and speculation,” says Melanie Naranjo, the VP of people at compliance training platform Ethena.
Some leaders are also investing in modern updates to some of the staid tools and trainings employed by many HR departments. These sometimes include introducing hotlines or surveys for employees who want to share complaints anonymously. Ethena, for example, offers a more accessible alternative to traditional compliance training, using simple, straightforward language to create, say, a dating policy or harassment training. “We use really relatable language,” Naranjo says, “[and] actually relevant experiences that people may face day-to-day, rather than the extreme examples you tend to see in a lot of trainings. I want to know what you do when there’s that gray area.”
This approach doesn’t just apply to how HR leaders operate within companies. Schmidt argues that some of the leading chief people officers in the space right now are also vocal externally, sharing their learnings with the broader HR community on platforms like LinkedIn. “Progressive teams are all embracing open source,” he says. “They’re all talking about what they’re doing; they’re talking about how they’re doing it. They’re talking about where they’re failing. They’re very candid and open about their practices.”
In fact, at a number of companies, HR has become increasingly intertwined with external communications or has attracted employees with a background in communications, according to McCreary. (At Credit Karma, she was actually the chief people, places, and publicity officer and oversaw both HR and communications.) This isn’t especially surprising given so much of HR comes down to effective communication. “If your external narrative is not matching your internal narrative, you’re going to have a problem on both sides,” McCreary says. “You’re going to have a problem with your brand and how your products are viewed, especially in the consumer space. And you’re going to have a problem inside with your employees, if what you do for your consumers and your customers on the outside doesn’t match the story of how you treat your people on the inside.”
Embedding progressive practices into culture
Many progressive leaders have sought to build the kind of work culture that reflects a transparent, decentralized approach to people management, by enabling managers to help address personnel issues rather than taking them directly to HR. “Managers are really empowered to manage and lead,” Schmidt says. “HR is not the first point of escalation. We have a framework in place, [so] we can support you—but that’s your role as a manager.” The idea is that HR should be able to focus on strategic, big-picture work and, for the most part, get roped into individual personnel issues only for more serious incidents.
Still, managers should also know when to pull in HR, or how to proceed depending on the situation. Leaders like McCreary say it’s important to provide the right training to managers so they’re well-versed in how to respond to different issues that might arise with employees. When an issue does get escalated to the point of a formal investigation, however, some cases may be relatively black and white, where it’s clear that someone is in the wrong. But it’s the more complex cases that test the limits of progressive HR, so to speak—and a company’s commitment to its values. “The hard ones really are in the gray,” says McCreary. “It’s also the time when you have to decide: How do you live your values as a company and as an organization? Are you willing to get rid of a top performer who didn’t live up to expectations? That is where it gets really challenging.”
How HR folks respond in these moments can also be a testament to whether they have the support of senior leadership—and sometimes, when they’re faced with an unpopular decision, that can mean sticking their necks out to do right by employees. “It really comes down to: Who’s your boss, and how much do they back you?” McCreary says. “How much are you willing to put your own job on the line to do what you think is right?” And this may not only apply to individual personnel issues: In recent months, HR leaders have also been tasked with managing decisions around layoffs, which has often meant pushing back and acting as an advocate for employees. (Are layoffs absolutely necessary? Could the company explore other options?)
Of course, even a leader that embraces a more modern vision of HR won’t always get it right or will bump up against the limitations of the job. There’s only so much training one can do to control the employee experience when the majority of workers interface most closely with their direct manager—and all managers aren’t created equal. While HR leaders can help shape the messaging around layoffs, they don’t necessarily have control over the breadth of job cuts (and their own departments may be impacted).
Even with anonymous hotlines and other tools at their disposal, HR leaders can’t be reasonably expected to mitigate every issue that might arise for an employee. “When people would ask me like, what keeps you up at night, my number one concern was: I can build as many guidelines and processes and have all of these things in place,” McCreary says. “And yet, I don’t control what happens day-to-day for every single person in the company. That’s scary.”
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