In a complex world, the ability to find solutions to organisational brain-teasers separates the good from the great, says Louisa Baczor
The role of HR director hardly lends itself to a standard job description nowadays. As the world of work is growing more complex and uncertain, senior HR practitioners need a range of complementary skills to continue creating sustainable relationships between people and organisations.
In the CIPD’s recent HR Outlook survey, almost half of the current HR directors who responded told us their last job role was outside HR. Seven out of 10 weren’t working in HR five years ago. Time spent learning elsewhere in the business is valuable, but mastery of specialist knowledge and professional skills remains firmly at the heart of being an HR director.
That body of knowledge is continuously expanding beyond the understanding of processes and practices involved in managing people. With the changing nature of work and the role of the HR profession, there is a need for a deeper level of business acumen, analytics, behavioural science and more.
Translating this knowledge into practical solutions that create value within specific organisational contexts is the real skill – but it’s not about simply about being a slave to short term business goals. It’s about creating sustainable value for everyone. And in the context of uncertainty, professional effectiveness is not only about knowledge, since this knowledge can be applied through different lenses.
The challenge is that throughout an HR director’s career, they will face many situations where there is no predefined best practice, or standard rules or regulations to guide decision-making. For example, representation of women in senior roles offers a range of perspectives, none of which are necessarily right or wrong. Some might think it’s important to redress some of the historic imbalance in gender diversity, and might hire a woman over an (equally skilled) man. To others, such positive discrimination would seem unfair, and they insist on treating men and women consistently, perhaps providing mentoring and coaching to help women progress. Alternatively, you could take the view that we shouldn’t intervene at all, and let men and women compete for jobs to the best of their ability.
These situations raise questions about balancing organisational, professional and personal perspectives. It’s not just about knowing what to do, but knowing how and when to do it. For an HR director today, there is no way to escape making choices about the “right” thing to do, challenging some of the long-standing assumptions about “best practice” for matching the needs of a diverse workforce to a range of different organisational contexts.
It’s a test of character and the ability to view the different options in an unbiased way, and consider the solutions that will create sustainable working relationships. Arriving at such judgments requires ethical competence – the ability to view a single problem from multiple viewpoints, and ask critical questions about the outcomes of the decision for the business, individuals and wider communities.
That is why the role of HR director today involves using knowledge, skills and experience to deliver expert insight, analyse the specific business context and the needs of the diverse workforce, and lay out the alternative courses of action to the business. It also means measuring risks and acting as a critical friend to ensure that all perspectives are considered and the “right” decisions are made. High quality professional judgements act as a foundation for credibility and trust in the ability of the HR function to deliver strategic business solutions that are sustainable for the business, people, and society.