HR- People SMEs?

Are we?

You ask a manager, and they will say yes- HR is (or should be) the experts in people- their psychology, the why, the what, the how, of how people work.  I know that if I need help on excel, I’ll ask an accountant, and if I’m curious on a mechanical problem, I’ll talk to an engineer.  Is this fair?  Sort of; given their work- odds on they will know more than me, and at the moment I can’t fix the problem.

How much you know about how people work, and how much you can predict or explain their behaviour, will vary on much you actually know (a lot of us actually have psychology degrees, for what they are worth), and your confidence (are you at the Dunning- Kruger overconfidence stage, or suffering from imposter syndrome?).  But often, you’re not an expert, but you’re the closest the company has to hand. 

One of the hardest thing to do in life is to understand how the world sees you, but once you understand it, it’s much easier to navigate the flows of life.  One comedian discusses how their comedy improved when they realized how people saw them, so they could go with, or against that on occasions, to make their jokes funnier. 

Understanding how people see HR as a function is important, so we can understand where are starting from, and what we are working against.  One of the most important expectations is that we are ‘people experts’.  If a manager, executive team, or the business as a whole, is worried about the human factor of their business, they turn to HR.  So that’s one of the roles we serve.

We get good at what we are interested in

One of the tropes of why people get into HR is that we want to help people.  Probably that myth has been dispelled for you by now, if not….

People are drawn to work in HR because they are interested in people- how they work, what upsets them, what makes them happy.  Just as many mechanics like to tinker, mathematicians enjoy Sukodu, and writers like wordle, HR people typically have a natural interest in people.  With so many things in life, competence begins with curiosity, and then with practice (and we get lots of practice solving workplace dramas) we build competence.  If you think everybody has the same level of people competence- perhaps not. Some people are all thumbs, foot-in-mouth people when it comes to social interactions. I know my uncle is.

Line managers are promoted for technical expertise into people roles

One of things that keep me gainfully employed is one ongoing practice; promoting employees for their technical capability, but no experience or qualifications in managing people Imagine the inverse happening to you:  ‘Congratulations Maria, you’re really good at HR, so you’re now in charge of procurement for our haulage contracts’.

This doesn’t mean they don’t care, don’t try, or don’t have potential, but we are largely starting from square one on the learning curve, so they need guidance.  As discussed elsewhere in these articles, only 10% of learning is formal training, 70% is doing, and 20% is informal training.  Very often, we are those trainers, and people need, and look to us, to provide that guidance.

Sometimes someone needs to look at a problem for the people perspective.

There a cognitive bias, called ‘the law of the instrument/Maslow’s Hammer’, which (to oversimplify) means ‘when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’.   Normally bias is problematic, but sometimes it can be useful for one person to look at a situation from one perspective only. Just as the IT person would head straight for the computer when there is a problem, HR people first instinct is to look at the people part of an issue.

This is useful because every problem as many facets, many parts.  Typically the manager is focused on the output; how is the work going to get done?  This is important, but sometimes the other aspects of the situation; when Health and Safety casts their eye over a situation, they are only looking at how this might be putting someones health at risk.  When HR casts an eye, we many things, but primarily risk- risk of legal action against the organisation, but also risk to team culture, and individual engagement.

Knowing the rules means you know how far you can go

I discuss this also when discussing our role as employment law SMEs, but there is one key overlap.  If you don’t know the rules of the game, you don’t know what is right or wrong.  In most countries, there are legal constraints to employer actions, and most managers know this, but they don’t have a clear idea of what is fine, and what is too far.  Due to uncertainty, managers will err on the side of caution, which can lead to them to avoid difficult conversations.

The more you know the rules, the more you know what is wrong, and what isn’t.  Personally I can be as firm and as tough as I ever need to be, because I know the lines of unacceptable conduct, so have a nuanced understanding of what I can and cannot say.