Guest Post: Viva la Revolution!

Today’s PRHR guest post is brought to you by Chris Ferdinandi. Enjoy! – Laurie

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Today I’m launching a revolution, and I want you to be part of it.

A month or so ago, Laurie wrote a controversial article advocating the destruction of traditional HR. Her article spawned some interesting discussion and a healthy handful of spin-off articles either promoting her ideas or shunning them as SHRM blasphemy.

Viva la Revolution!

Romeo once asked, “What’s in a name?” The truth is, a lot. Romeo also ended up killing himself – probably not the best person to take advice from.

I’m going to be blunt: Human Resources, and its preppy cousin, Human Capital, are crappy names to describe what we do. I’m not a parts supplier – I don’t manage resources. I’m not a financial controller – I don’t manage capital. I manage people, and help them do amazing work with the skills they bring to the table.

A while back Seth Godin wrote an awesome article on how HR could better market itself. He said,

Change the department name to Talent.

The reason this makes some people uncomfortable is that it seems like spin, like gratuitous double speak. And, if you don’t change what you do, that would be true. BUT…

What if you started acting like the VP of Talent? Understanding that talent is hard to find and not obvious to manage. The VP of Talent would have to reorganize the department and do things differently all day long (small example: talent shouldn’t have to fill out reams of forms and argue with the insurance company… talent is too busy for that… talent has people to help with that.)

Seth is spot on. But of course, some places already call their people function the Talent Management department. As a name for what we do, talent management great step in the right direction. I actually call myself a talent management professional.

The thing is, though, that I don’t exactly manage talent, either. I manage people. People who have talent. Lots of it. But still… people.

People Management

Our jobs should be about one thing: Helping our people do extraordinary work to drive business success.

What does People Management look like? My version differs a bit from Laurie’s. I think, for example, that what we do is about more than just attracting and retaining key people. And I think generalists can play a critical role in the function.

Here’s my list:

• Sourcing & Selection.
• Employer Branding. Using Web 2.0 technologies is a big part of this.
• Onboarding.
• Training. The kind that influences behavior and isn’t horribly boring to sit through.
• Performance Management. This means using strategic compensation to motivate people (but not exclusively).
• Cultural Stewardship. This is where the people formerly known as generalists come in. Their new purpose is help create an environment that maximizes their peoples’ potential. Remember, it was a pair of generalists who created ROWE at Best Buy.

Some of these topics (sourcing and selection, employer branding, and onboarding, for example) could be lumped into one broader category (like recruiting). While I think the individual tasks could be handled by the same function, they all warranted individual mention.

Out With the Old

A stronger focus on these tasks requires us to get rid of some old ones. Much like Laurie, I recommend that whenever possible we outsource (or get rid of completely) things like benefits administration, policy writing, and dealing with employees who act like children. These things are all important, but they don’t inspire people to do amazing things, and that’s what People Management is all about.

Human Resources, even when strategic, still had a huge hand in cost-saving for the organization. And while that’s certainly important, it’s pretty limiting. People Management is about adding value by helping your people do extraordinary work.

The Revolution Starts at Home

Want to bring the People Management Revolution to a workplace near you but don’t know how? Follow this handy step-by-step guide:

1. Understand your organization’s business strategies, and what people need to do to support them.
2. Understand what motivates people. Develop more holistic approaches to performance issues that go beyond a Performance Improvement Plan and the threat of being fired (fear is a horrible motivator).
3. Treat people like grown-ups. They may surprise you and start acting like it.
4. Don’t tolerate people who act like children. Bad attitudes, unethical behavior and other child-like behaviors kill the culture and drag down entire teams. The most successful organizations have a low tolerance for people who act like kids.
5. Stop talking HR-ese. You sound like an idiot (seriously).
6. Stop talking Business-ese. You sound like you’re trying to hard.

Welcome to the revolution!

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Chris Ferdinandi is a writer, entrepreneur and talent management pro based in Boston, MA. He’s also a poor man’s renaissance man: Mediocre musician, weekend-warrior athlete, day-dreaming philosopher and hippie humanitarian.

He’s the creator of Manager’s Sandbox, a free blog about recruiting great people and inspiring them to do amazing work.