How to improve HR Management? How to build strong HR organization?

Building modern HR organization is a real pain. Most companies have HR department, which is not taken as the best practice, even in the company. The people from Human Resources are believed to be incompetent, socially focused, no business driven and having no strategic initiatives in mind.

The business environment changed. The organization has to be slim, quickly reacting to innovations of competitors, and they have to create the sustainable competitive advantage. HR plays the crucial role in building the modern high performing organization. The mindset of HR employees has to change.

Most HR Departments are reactive today. They do not lead the value added HR Processes. They react to the changed requests of the top management and line management. They have to change from the reactive Human Resources to the proactive one.

The strong HR organization needs business oriented HR employees. The business oriented HR employee is the expert in the HR field and additionally is able to run the cross-functional projects and initiatives, reads the financial reports and statements (and founds HR recommendations in them) and can negotiate with the top management.

Main Issues and Problematic Areas in Current HR Management

Non-transparent HR Policies

Human Resources was traditionally in-transparent. The HR was not managing its policies. The policies were designed to adopt the practice of the organization, and it was full of many exceptions. The top managers loved to deliver the small extras to key employees.

The HR policies reflected the influence. The policies were vague, and the employees were not sure what they can apply for, and what is the approval procedure. They felt that the procedure is not fair.

Human Resources has to change its habit to publish vague HR policies and procedures. It is painful as it asks to despatch all exceptions. The results are outstanding then.

Inconsistent HR Decisions

The HR decisions are not consistent, and they are usually based on the authority and power of the individual managers. The strong managers get more from Human Resources, and their departments enjoy higher salaries or higher bonus pools. They yell at HR, and they get what they want.

The HR has to design the robust system of HR policies and procedures, which can block the managers. The managers have to follow the written rules and no exceptions are granted by Human Resources. The consistent decision process will be appreciated by the employees. The fair approach is the only way to build the high performance corporate culture.

Difficult HR Processes

HR does not apply the Pareto rule. It implements processes, which are perfect. The perfect processes in HR are too complex and too slow. The HR Team should try to make the process smooth, and the rest can be a topic of the managerial discussion.

The difficult HR processes make the reaction of HR slow and bureaucratic. Modern HR has to be quick in the reaction, and it has to offer proactively the solutions.

Weak HR information system

HR was not seen to be important for the business. The information systems used in HR were old, and they were not using the modern ways of operation. Most HR processes were supported by the manual work and excellent tables in Microsoft Excel.

The information in HR are not managed centrally, and HR reports are full of mistakes. The other departments have to build their own HR reports as they can react quickly to changes in the external environment.

How to build the strong HR organization?

HR Training in Building Competitive Advantage

HR employees should be trained in the art of the building the competitive advantage. It is not difficult, but the HR employees have to understand, what makes the difference. The company has to use the different approach to its human capital.

The HR Training used for building the competitive advantage should learn the employees in using new approaches, building the formal and informal networks, assigning the right priorities and recognizing the business opportunities. The HR employees should learn to innovate HR services and tailor the standard offer to the needs of the internal customers.

Finance for HR Professionals

The HR employees have to understand the basics of the financial management of the organization. The money is the blood of the organization and HR professionals have to understand to it.

HR employees are ignoring the costs, revenues and financial stability. They usually have no clue, what costs they add to the organization. The training is aimed to get the human capital related costs to the comparison with the revenues and profits.

Strong HR Project Management

HR has to deliver the cross-functional projects aiming the increased performance of the organization. The project management is essential for the successful Human Resources department. The HR Projects are usually late on delivery, and goals are not fully met.

The new and strong HR project managers should help to gain the respect of other functions in the organization. The HR projects are extremely valuable today. The HR projects allow the organization to decrease costs or to increase the performance and productivity of employees.