by Cheryl Jekiel, Shingo Faculty Fellow
Earlier this year, I shared an article on how HR has lost the trust of employees. The intensity of the response was nothing short of shocking. We received more than 600 comments, many of which were long letters. This topic certainly struck a nerve.
Several of the posts were from people who had been deeply disappointed in how HR had treated them. Why were they so disappointed? They had expected to have their interests protected so they trusted HR to be their advocate. Instead, their experience seemed to reflect HR as a function devoted to protecting the organization.
After considering all the responses and my own decades of experience, it became clear that it is a big mistake if we fail to position the people function as a win-win instead of as a competing interest.
Inherently, HR needs to be good for our people and, hence, good for our organizations. Protecting individual interests is not opposed to the needs of the organization. Instead, it is connected and mutually beneficial. This leads to the question of how we can best go about addressing this challenge.
HR’s Connection to People Value Streams
One way to consider the evolution of HR is based on the concept of People Value Streams, which was introduced to me a few years back by Peter Hines, another Shingo Faculty Fellow. Like production-related value streams, the goal is to optimize flow in terms of how people function best. Interestingly, my initial impression was that People Value Streams would reflect key employment-related processes, which are often the basis for HR efforts. Instead, People Value Streams are an in-depth look at how we can enhance the way people flourish in the workplace, encompassing a variety of aspects of what drives human health and well-being.
People Value Streams also highlight the opportunity and benefit of enhancing experiences that motivate individuals in the workplace. The good news is that many continuous improvement activities can dramatically increase people’s level of engagement and provide a deeper sense of connection with their work. For example, team-based problem solving helps people be more independent in finding their own solutions, learning new skills along the way, and spending enjoyable time with teammates. In fact, what first drew my intention to the field of continuous improvement was witnessing how people light up when they are making improvements.
We can use a range of well-established concepts from human-related sciences to gain insight into how workplaces can function best for various types of individuals. For example, in the last few years, employers have been seeking to optimize their value proposition to attract and retain talent, and this is reflected in a recent resurgence of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as an HR topic of interest. Maslow’s hierarchy is just one example of how to identify opportunities for improvement, such as how we tend to people’s basic needs, like safety and inclusion, compared to their growth needs to learn and achieve.
Also in recent years, many HR groups are shifting their focus to improving the employee experience. For example, I wrote an article earlier this year on a technique used by Mai Lee from McKee Foods. She developed an innovative approach to gathering insights into how people feel during their recruitment and onboarding experience using focus groups where they selected images to fully express how they felt at key points. As new hires shared both their positive and negative experiences, the various leadership groups, including HR, identified valuable opportunities to improve.
Shifting to People Value Streams has the potential to revolutionize the way HR adds value in how they care for people, which in turn improves organizational results. Beyond how we can improve HR’s care for people in the workplace, let’s consider their critical role in successful Shingo cultures.
The Critical Role of HR
My greatest passion in life has been to promote HR in terms of strategic value, especially in organizations committed to continuous improvement through the involvement of their people. Following are three elements that need to be addressed in cycles of improvement year by year. None of these elements is simple or easy to complete, but they work together to create alignment, critical skills, and the right culture.
These elements reflect the strategic demand for HR to drive the best results for internal customers, which will surely transfer to creating value for external customers.
The Shingo HR Action Learning Community
Taking these ideas to improve HR is only a small aspect of why organizations would want to pursue them. The much bigger purpose is to increase the level of success with sustainable improvements and, more importantly, drive a highly engaged workforce. Upgrading the role of HR in optimizing how we care for people, including how they are integrated into continuous improvement, can only add to the chances of success.
One way to create a brighter future for HR is to increase the strength of networking within the Shingo community. Organizations have been asking for a way to connect the people function with the best practices of other groups. In response, we are launching the Shingo HR Action Learning Community (click HERE to learn more) for organizations to create a place for people to consider how they can best support continuous improvement.
As we look forward, we need to structure and support HR to create the workplace culture of our dreams. The results will surely follow.
Read Cheryl's latest book, Let Go to Lead.
Optional footer text. If none, Advanced > Layout > Display: None
