Thursday, May 19, 2011

Don't bother me with the details, I don't care

Have you heard these words or something similar within your organizations? I recently returned from Las Vegas, where I conducted a three day review seminar for a national certification exam. During the course of the three days there were several instances where one of the participants said in regards to some legal situations that their management said they did not care if the process involved something that might lead to adverse conditions they just wanted the situation taken care of.

The difficulty here is that in many cases management has not gotten the message. David Ulrich in his book HR Value Proposition makes the argument that management needs to change its outlook about what it is we in HR do. We need to be judged based on what we deliver not what we do. When I was in the mode of trying to find a full time human resource slot I was getting ruled out because my resume stated I worked a consultant. The logic thread read that because I had worked as a consultant I would have the tendency to rock the boat.

The old school says that the responsibility of HR is to be the administrative arm of the organization. Do the paperwork, follow the status quo, don't try and make things better, we know what we are doing and the organization is not interested in change.

The new world looks upon the total organization, including the human capital management arena, as needing to satisfy the needs of the internal and external customers. In order to do that we need to look at the affect of our actions on both the community as a whole and our organizations. We should not and even more important can't overlook environmental issues that could detrimentally affect the organizational sustainability.

The IRS and other government agencies have stated in numerous cases that ignorance is no excuse. You can't tell your departments we don't care about the details. It is the details that can come back to haunt the organization.Source out the talent you need but don't impact the results by putting constraints on the hiring process centered around the perfect candidate. Work on succession planning but do so by seeking the candidate that is working within your organization who is your mirror. Help the organization to grow by misclassification of an employee because it is the convenient way to do it. You might very well find yourself in the FedEx Massachusetts case where by ignoring the details you just cost the organization three million dollars to rectify an error in judgement.

If you are the future of the organization then it is your duty and responsibility to care about the details. Think before you decide that that short cut is the way you want to go. If Human resources or one of your vendors tells you are headed in the wrong direction don't just sweep it under the rug. Inevitably when a new manager comes in they will find the dust under the rug and it will be detrimental to everyone involved down the road.

Posted via email from hrstrategist@Net-Speed

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