{"id":56,"date":"2022-06-30T01:26:08","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T01:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/?p=56"},"modified":"2022-07-29T06:33:42","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T06:33:42","slug":"whats-the-biggest-challenge-for-an-hr-professional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/whats-the-biggest-challenge-for-an-hr-professional\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT\u2019S THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR AN HR PROFESSIONAL?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_60\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 300px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-60\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/files\/2022\/06\/hr-challengees-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/files\/2022\/06\/hr-challengees-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/files\/2022\/06\/hr-challengees.jpg 612w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">image of wooden blocks with people icons over table ,building a strong team, human resources and management concept<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Meeting the Challenges of HR<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the reasons I love consulting job is I have the privilege of going to so many companies, and really trying to figure out what\u2019s happening in the field of human resources today. What a great opportunity. And I\u2019m so grateful for literally hundreds of HR professionals who teach me far more than I teach them. But as I go around, one of the things I\u2019m running into is a very common challenge. Let me frame it with a question. And if you\u2019re thinking about what\u2019s happening in the field of HR, in a nutshell, think about this question. What\u2019s the biggest challenge I face in my job today as an HR person? What\u2019s the biggest challenge I face in my job today?<\/p>\n<p>When I run workshops and seminars, I often begin with that question. And here\u2019s what I often hear.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gaining credibility.<\/li>\n<li>Getting access to the senior manager.<\/li>\n<li>Winning the war for talent. (<em>This war for talent is continuing no matter what the economic cycle is.)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Redefining an HR practice, to do better training, to do better compensation, to do better work redesign.<\/li>\n<li>Redefining communications.<\/li>\n<li>Restructuring the HR department.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Whatever you put on your list. As I\u2019ve thought about that list, what I\u2019ve begun to discover is that there are\u00a0<strong><u>four circles<\/u><\/strong>. In HR, we\u2019re beginning to move from the second circle to the fourth circle and the first circle. Now let me go through the second circle.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-57\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/files\/2022\/07\/Picture1-300x154.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"470\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/files\/2022\/07\/Picture1-300x154.png 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/files\/2022\/07\/Picture1-768x393.png 768w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/files\/2022\/07\/Picture1-1024x524.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The second circle is what I call HR<\/strong>. In tradition, when we\u2019ve thought about HR and what our challenge is, it\u2019s related to HR, either gaining personal credibility, either doing an HR practice better, or finding some way in HR to do what we do and to do it well. I think for years that was the right model. And we\u2019d see models of HR that would say it\u2019s staffing, training, compensation, communication. And that\u2019s what HR is about. I think we in recent years have moved up to the second circle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The third circle is strategy<\/strong>. What we\u2019re now doing is moving. What we\u2019re doing to accomplish and deliver against a business strategy. Here\u2019s the question. Ask yourself, what\u2019s the biggest challenge in my job today? Is it talent, compensation, credibility? Use a two-word phrase so that moves me to the business level, so that I can deliver business value. That means meeting the financial goals, meeting the customer goals, delivering a business value that helps us be successful. In the last decade, I think we\u2019ve tried to go from activity to the outcome connected to the business. In the recent economic crisis and in recent years, with demographics and technology and globalization and economic uncertainty, I think we now move to the last circle, which I\u2019m simply going to call context. The context is some of the economic conditions, we face regulation, we face inflation, we face deflation, we face technology changes, we face industry changes, we face demographic changes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The fourth circle on the right is the one that I\u2019ve been intrigued with lately in the world in which we live, because HR must go from activity to strategy to context. We are feeling more demand than we\u2019ve ever felt. Almost every HR professional I know is saying my job is tougher today than ever. I must do more with less. I must be more productive; I must help my company manage change faster. In HR we are often on the front lines of that change. In a growth economy, we\u2019re pushed to find people to do work in China and India and Vietnam and a down economy. We\u2019re the face-to-face person at taking out head count, at managing cost. All that bears an emotional burden.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The fourth circle is giving care to the caregiver.<\/strong>\u00a0We NHR are the caregivers of our company. We\u2019re the ones who must have the heart and the soul that helps our company manage that value chain. And we need to take care of ourselves to make that happen. And some of the recent thinking we\u2019ve been doing is how do we in HR have the resources to provide help with the demands that we\u2019re facing? When we have resources to respond to those demands, we\u2019ll be successful. And that\u2019s what we need to be able to build. So, what\u2019s the biggest challenge in my job today? Circle four, to do good HR work, to be credible, to build good practices, to build good HR organization. So that I build a business strategy and help the strategy happened. So that in the world we live in, we respond, and we adapt. Well. Because of going down to the first circle, I have managed my emotional well-being. I\u2019ve taken care of myself, and I\u2019m fit and able to be a successfully our professional. When we see the lineup of those four circles, I think we\u2019re going to be more successful in the work that we do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meeting the Challenges of HR One of the reasons I love consulting job is I have the privilege of going to so many companies, and really trying to figure out what\u2019s happening in the field of human resources today. What &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/whats-the-biggest-challenge-for-an-hr-professional\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[302173],"tags":[302173],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hr-challenges","tag-hr-challenges"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amirkohan1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}