Training H.R. on strategy and governance.

I was reading an interesting article by Jenny Roper (People Management, June 2020) on corporate governance the other day, and how Human Resources – often forgotten when it comes to boardroom level matters – will likely have a larger part to play in senior business decisions in the future. In the uncertain world presented to us by Covid-19, values, integrity, and responsible business are the only constant – that there are indeed difficult decisions to make to make operations viable in the long term, but the best anyone can do right now is handle the strategic thought process and execution in a responsible way (we are seeing plenty of horror stories to the contrary). H.R. – already central to many contemporary business decisions through being the custodians of consultation processes and suchlike – will certainly have a role to play in the wider governance of such behaviours, also in scrutinising pay, wellbeing provision and even an increasing say in the curation of organisational culture.

Roper makes a valid point, but it’s hardly a new one. There has been a long-evolving argument about H.R. and their role (or lack of it) as strategic partners. That word, ‘strategy’ and the term ‘business partnering’ are often presented as the holy grail for H.R. practitioners in how they add value to the business, with much debate about how this is leveraged. I passionately believe that H.R. leaders have a responsibility not only to their C.E.Os, M.D.s, etc. to make this happen, but also to the people in their own teams – the H.R. line staff and H.R. middle managers – whose experience of shaping strategy will predominantly only be anecdotally through studying or reading articles; much less through hands-on experience, unless they luckily happen to be working in the right place at the right time. My first taste of think strategically was twelve years ago when I – as wet-behind-the-ears H.R. coördinator – had to fill in for a few months reporting into a General Manager while a Director of H.R. was being recruited (in remarkably similar economic conditions to what we have today, I might add). Though I didn’t achieve much, the experience and the discussions I was privy to opened my eyes and even added my investment into the H.R. profession.

H.R. leaders in any business have a moral duty to prepare their teams for strategic leadership and corporate governance responsibilities – it is never too early to sow those seeds. How this is accomplished is a different and difficult matter, but for me, nothing beats raw experience. Encouraging your team to contribute to department strategy meetings such as assisting with the hosting or even asking them to propose vision or mission statements, suggest goals and even plan a whole strategy for the section of H.R. they engage with the most, is an accessible and sure-fire way to a least drip-drop the idea and meaningfulness of strategy, as well reinforcing the mechanics of how strategy is created. I often have my team sit in on company H.R. webinars where long-term plans and projects are discussed, discussing them afterwards the context and rationale behind the direction.

Away from H.R., getting your teams exposed to overall business strategy is trickier, but depending on your industry (and influence!) appropriate opportunities to have your team sit in on top level discussions could be negotiated. H.R. associates can in theory observe sales strategy meetings and maybe even certain business-planning discussions if the material is not too sensitive. Asking your top-level leaders to host live Q&A sessions on business strategy is a great thing to do, especially right now when people might have a little more free time. It may also create the benefit of adding transparency to any changed being discussed because of Covid-19.

Finally, and more generally, a decent bit of good will and openness from any H.R. leader goes a long way in training the team on the importance of strategy. Not just from making the learning available to their teams – even if it is remotely right now – but also being straightforward and honest to their team in relating to them the complexities, emotions, difficult decisions and rocky roads to overcome in creating inclusive, H.R.-centric, sustainable and responsible business strategy… there’s literally no time like the present.