Keys to Unlock Boundaryless HR

A Review of Deloitte’s article: From function to discipline: The rise of boundaryless HR

I want to talk a bit about this fantastic article from Deloitte, From function to discipline: The rise of boundaryless HR. If you have an extra fifteen minutes or so, take a moment to read it. Otherwise, the premise is this: As work continues to change in rapid and uncertain ways it is becoming imperative that the traditional function of HR transform into a function that works across the organization to support all types of people functions. If an organization wants to be successful, they will recognize the need to create boundaryless HR. But that isn’t exactly what I want to talk about. I want to talk about how to get there.

First off, while I agree with the article as a whole, I would probably change one little word. Instead of saying “People expertise (within or beyond HR), alongside expertise in other disciplines, will be critical” I would argue that it should have been written as “is critical”. There is not time to wait, the time is now! I can bet that for most HR professionals reading this the thought will be, well I already am boundaryless. Do you know how much I do every day? How many decisions I make? How much I impact the business? Well, I do, but what about your organization? Does your c-suite know what you do? Do they know what types of decisions and actions you’re driving? If Deloitte is right and only 20% of c-suite leaders think HR improves their workers’ performance, the answer is probably a lackluster maybe, at best. Don’t take it personally, I have the same problem. HR is a field that is normally ignored. Up until now! This is what I want to talk about. How exactly you go about building the relationships and actually be seen by your c-suite counterparts.

Relationship Building

This is arguably the most important part of anyone’s career: building relationships. Deloitte puts it this way in their article, “The mindset shift to boundaryless HR often requires that HR leave its comfort zone – shifting from owning the discipline of people to co-owning and cocreating it with the people and business it serves in order to drive shared outcomes with mutual accountability”. The idea of co-owning can be a little intimidating. We don’t want to lose our job because someone else can do it for us. Managers can onboard their own employees, AI can answer questions about leaves of absence, and employees can do their own research on policies. But is that really our job anyway? Your job is to help guide an organization forward through people initiatives and people work in every department. A good HR professional should have a basic understanding of every department within their organization. What they do, how they operate, what are their pain points. It isn’t to take the managers’ job or do the manager’s job for them, but it is to help understand what HR can do to alleviate some of the roadblocks and create an overall better experience while also improving efficiency. All of this is done through relationships with departmental leaders.

My advice is to start small. Spend some time with the leader. Ask them questions about what they do and why they stay. What motivates them to come to work each day? Then spend some time with the team. Shadow them to see what their day looks like. Eventually, they will start to open up to you. Now you’ve got the approval of the manager and the approval of the team. Keep doing this with each department and slowly but surely you will build an army of cocreators ready to work with you on even your craziest of projects.

Relationship building is so important. You can’t skip it. And if you want to be seen and heard you need to have allies. These are your allies.

Pitches

Once you’ve built up your relationships, you’re ready to start pitching your ideas! This is probably my favorite part of the job. Coming up with ideas and then figuring out how on earth to get leadership to say yes. It isn’t easy. Most of the time HR is looked at as a money pit. The company just spends money on the department and what do they get out of it? Not much! Wrong! Everything HR does, everything you do can equate to savings for the organization and that is what you need to figure out.

A CHRO once told me that her CEO said every single slide should have a number on it. The page number doesn’t count. It sounds daunting but once you start making it a habit the concept isn’t that hard to follow. Say you are pitching an idea for an engagement initiative. Do a Google search on engagement statistics and you’ll be flooded with information. Then look at your turnover numbers. There is a number. Do you think if you increased engagement your turnover would go down? How much would it go down? There is a number. And isn’t a reduction in turnover through an increase in engagement the goal anyway? How much would the reduction in turnover save the company? That is your big number. I typically put that at the end as a sort of climax to the presentation. You could also include things like increased productivity, reduction of hours because of increased efficiency, and you could even go for something like a decrease in medical costs because of a decrease in stress levels. There are all kinds of numbers you could come up with.

Build this into your pitches and just see what happens.

Driving Projects

Now, you’ve got your relationships in your back pocket and your initiative has been approved. This is the make or break for HR. Can we drive the project to fruition and can we prove that it was successful. Too many times do we as HR professionals get bogged down by the here and now. Someone has a payroll question, your top salesperson is threatening to quit, a manager just yelled at their subordinate. There are so many things that take up space in our day and distract us from meaningful projects that will create a true impact on the organization. But things are changing. Artificial intelligence is opening up possibilities for the field to move into this new role. Leaders recognize the need for strong Human Resources leaders and are willing to invest in building up the teams. This is a great time to be in HR!

Don’t get bogged down. An oldie but goodie is always time blocking. Every time I kick off a new year, I go through my calendar and block time to work on projects. For the entire year! If a new project comes up, I block time. And I made a promise to myself that I will not delete the time blocks. If I need to move them because something urgent has come up, I move them, but I do not delete them.

Also, don’t be afraid to call on your relationships. This is where the cocreating comes into play. Most of the time these projects impact the managers and employees you’ve been getting to know. So why not involve them in the entire process? It helps create buy in and it gives you the extra support you need. In the article Deloitte states that “only 30% of C-suite leaders say their organization’s leaders are involving their workers in cocreating the organization’s solutions often or all of the time.” This is just a waste of talent in my opinion.

Set a goal, block time, and use your resources. Getting the project done is key to getting the next one approved.

Gloating

Now this is going to sound weird but hear me out. Probably one of the best leaders I’ve had once said to me, if you don’t speak up for yourself, no one else will. In HR not many people know what it is that we do. We are behind the scenes, or we just end up being the bad guy. When in reality we do so much, create so much change and yet it typically goes unnoticed. That ends now. So here we go, you’re going to have to gloat a little bit. Speak up for yourself and talk about what you’re doing. When you finish that big project talk about it. When you do a follow up and you have the numbers to prove it was successful, talk about it. Not just to your boss but to everyone. You did that and you should be proud.

Human Resources is so much more than payroll and onboarding. We are the backbone, in many cases, to a successful organization. And now more than ever is the prime opportunity for those of you climbing the ladder to make an impact. The time is now to move beyond the traditional and embrace a boundaryless HR.