"The real job of the HR Professional in a downturn"
Article posted on 15th December 2009
“HR should enable everyone to pull in the same direction”
Talking to Roger Harrop
Roger is an author, professional speaker, business advisor, non-executive director, mentor and consultant with an extensive experience across a broad spectrum of organisations. Before he went into business himself seven years ago, he worked as Group Chief Executive and manager for major multi-national companies. At the HRM Expo in Cologne he gives a keynote speech “Staying in the HelicopterÒ - the real job of the HR professional in a downturn”. We used his presence at the GSA convention in Mannheim for an interview.
Mr. Harrop, your website is all full of helicopters. What’s that all about?
In business, we always get involved in detail. But particularly when you are a CEO or a leader, you have to look at the big picture. I use the helicopter as a symbol for it because you can go up and see over the horizon, but you can also come down and get involved in the details, and then get up again. When you are up there in the helicopter looking downwards, mountains become knolls. Just put a bit of distance between you and the business, and suddenly big problems become small problems.
To make it a little bit more concrete, can you give an example how it changes your way of seeing things?
Whenever I am talking to businessmen or a client, the first thing I talk about is purpose. What is the business there for? What is its mission or vision? This is what I mean with being up there in the helicopter. And sometimes it can take an awfully long time for people to work that out, particularly for family businesses. I am a non-executive director of family businesses, in the second generation. What happens is that as time goes on, people or families just don’t talk about what the business is there for. Maybe it’s just to make money, but if so, how much money and when? It may be there to leave a legacy; it may be there for selling it. But once you define that, you get in your helicopter and you say: In three years time, that’s where we want to be.
And which role has HR to play in this?
In most organisations I come through, there are probably only two people in the organisation that can go anywhere, talk to anyone and do anything. And that’s the chief executive and the HR managers. And the HR managers should be doing that particularly in these times. They are enablers. Unfortunately, over the last decade, HR people have got immersed in the latest employment legislation, the latest health and safety legislation, the CSR – which is all fine. But at the end of the day, for me the HR people are there for people. They need to be the eyes and the ears of the CEO. They need to put their finger on the pulse of the business. So HR is there for all the people in the company, from the very top to the very bottom, and they should enable everyone to pull in the same direction - and that direction has to be defined from the helicopter.
Should they just enable people or should they maybe also make some management decisions?
They must not make management decisions which should have been made by the management. And I’ve seen that in the past. You have got managers who don’t like disciplining so they let HR do it. The line manager’s job is to look at that, with the help of HR. Of course, there are some things where they are the custodians. For example in employment legislation, where they have to say: No, you cannot do that. They have a policing job if you like. But they are enablers rather than making management decisions.
How should they enable people?
For example, some research says that a typical sales person spends 51 percent of their time on administration and travel. It is non-productive, it ought to be 25 percent. If your sales people spend more time in front of costumers you get more business. So you have to enable them to spend more time with the costumer. It’s very easy, but that’s the logic. And you can apply it to every job in your organization.
And how can HR enable the employees?
Just take my example of sales people. Often they have to fill in reports and forms, but it’s nonsense. These days, every business should have a basic CRM system. Sales people should visit a client, come out and in their car they should have their laptop or their PDA and type in their report straight into the CRM system of the back office, and they drive to their next client. There is no need for anything else. I am a lousy typist, so I use voice recognition software and it’s brilliant: these days it’s 90 percent accurate out of the box. So I do a lot of driving and when I am driving I have a headphone on, I have a digital voice recorder and I am dictating letters and articles. And I am writing e-mails.
But we also waste a lot of time on e-mails.
Oh, I agree with you. Because in larger business, people spend a lot of time covering their back sides and that’s politics. That is another thing that HR can do: Get rid of the politics.
In recruiting, HR cannot afford to fail at the moment. What should they have in mind?
I am still surprised how many companies I come across who recruit just by making the typical interviews. The statistics say you get in wrong in three out of five times.
So which methods should companies apply?
I was in Singapore recently and I was talking to a group of people about that. And I said: “Let’s say you own a restaurant, you need a new chef – but how do you know that the chef is any good?” And one lady said to me: “Check his CV.” And I said: “No, statistically it’s been proven that 60 percent of what is written on the CV is not true.” “So I would ask for references”, suggested the lady. I said: “These days, if people are leaving a company, HR often has to write a good reference for them. So they mean nothing. What do you do?” And I was really surprised because this lady was sitting there and said “I really don’t know”. And then finally somebody else said: “You can get him to cook.”
“you need to audition not just interview”
What does that mean for other positions?
Assessment centres for example are a little bit out of fashion, but they are very good. I work with small businesses who cannot afford an assessment centre. So what we just prepare a little scenario. We send it to the candidate and say to him: “When you come in one week, you have got 10 minutes and tell us what you would do in this situation as if you were presenting to the board.” And it’s fabulous because it puts them under pressure. It gets them directly to think about the problems of the company and you see how he or she thinks about their job. The really important thing is that you should audition people not just interview them. Many times that I was at an audition, the person that I thought at the beginning would get the job didn’t get it. At first sight, you look at people’s technical abilities but not at the behaviour competences.
How can you know which behaviour competences you need for a certain position?
I believe in psychometric testing. I like Belbin’s team roles, because they are simple and you can apply them easily. Belbin defines eight different team roles. You don’t need every single one but you draw them on a circle and there are like four quarters. You need one of each quarter basically for any team to perform. One of the ways of getting performing teams is by making sure that you have a balance of behavioural profiles in the team.
Can you give an example?
For example, the so called “completer/finisher” is a person, who is meticulous about getting done everything a 110 percent. Crosses the Ts, dots the Is, ties everything up in a ribbon and will not allow the team to move forward until they a project is finished. Another role type is the “plant” who is the creative member of the team. Unfortunately, what tends to happen in this sort of downturn if companies have to reduce people numbers is that the chief executive says to the HR person: “This creative person is always a pain to manage. He comes in late and he is scruffy, what does he do anyway, let’s get rid of him.” But in these times, you need twice as many creatives. It’s the creative people who have to find the way out of the problem we have got here.
Do you think that HR people should benefit from the crisis by trying to headhunt people from other companies?
No, the priority is to firstly make sure that every person in your company is doing the job you want them to do. You can’t afford passengers at the moment. You need to train and encourage the employees. In these times you should be doubling education and training. At the end, there may be some who are not suited. You have to recognize that as well. But you don’t necessarily have to get rid of people even if sales are down. There are lots of markets and opportunities out there.
Maybe outrageous recruiting works more in other parts of the world like in the US?
Yes, I am afraid, but there it is still hire and fire. I think it’s very different in Europe. You have got to sell to the employees. And there is lot of research on this, particularly on Generation Y. They say: “If I will go to a company that is offering a job, first I want to know what their corporate social responsibility policy and what their policy on environment is and how they treat people.” They want to talk to other people in the company and ask them: “What are they like as an employer.” A big job and a big salary is not enough.
How should the culture be to attract people?
In the research, one of the questions that asked was: “What attracts you to a leader that you work for?” And the answer was: “A feeling of fun and excitement” which isn’t the answer that most people necessarily assume. People want to work in an organisation that is fun. They want to enjoy coming to work every day – even when there is a downturn. They don’t want to see the bosses all with miserable faces getting cross. And people who should be enabling the staff to enjoy every day are the chief executive, the board and HR. The board has also a big job to do with the values of a company. Often they don’t walk the talk, as we have seen with the banks and we cannot allow that to happen once more. And again HR has got a big role to play here.
What can a professional speaker like you do for HR people?
Speakers would say it’s the three Es: We educate, we entertain and we enthuse. Therefore, when we are speaking, people retain more of what we say to them. It is all about making sure that the people out there in the audience – whether we are speaking for an hour or doing a one week workshop – get the maximum benefit from what we are saying. A professional speaker often can bring about an international and a cross industrial perspective. And finally, people like to hear what other people are doing and what experiences they made. That is what we do as speakers: We tell stories.
Interview: Stefanie Hornung
