May be it is wrong to ask for help..

Ask to collaborate!

Every employee in HR function relies on the business line employees for subject matter expertise. When it is possible for the HR representative to accumulate some level of expertise through his/her existence in the Industry, that will not be sufficient to work on complex activities including;

• Designing a domain/technical training program
• Interviewing a lateral level candidate
• Assessing an employee for his knowledge level
• Designing a domain/technical assessment

In most situations, it becomes increasingly tough to get quality time from the SME. This leads to delay in execution of such projects or in some cases it results to projects with less quality. I would articulate this primarily to the way in which an SME’s contribution is looked at.

We may be going to ask for help, but what is required is a sense of
collaboration.

Designing a domain training program may be the KRA of the training manager but not of the SME. The SME may be appreciated for his contribution, in some cases may be rewarded, but is that all? The SME may have much more opportunities in his assigned role which can give him the necessary sense of achievement. An achievement in his/her role will definitely be considered better than his/her contribution to HR initiatives. In such a case why should the SME spend time in contribution to the HR folk’s KRA?

One way to overcome this may be to collaborate with the SME than to just ask the SME to stretch & lend his/her help. When collaboration can be made easy by assigning a common goal, there are some practical road blocks to this collaboration process.

• One party may be interested in finishing a project and showcasing it as their achievement than to showcase it as a joint achievement.
• The SME who contributes to HR initiatives may not be measured in an equal scale to that of those who contribute to the business.
• Contribution to HR initiatives may not be given any weight in the SME’s appraisal

When the keyword to overcome such roadblocks in collaboration, how to do it is the question to be answered.

We will discuss one answer here and leave the remaining to your own imagination.

Collaborate..not with one or two, but with the crowd. Web 2.0 is a gift to fix such issues. Create a collaborative portal where your business line employees can contribute to HR initiatives by sharing their business expertise. An online collaborative platform can be used for any decision support, content creation or evaluation purposes. By the nature of transparency built with web 2.0 tools, it will ensure that no single person is talked about for the success of an initiative, but what will be talked about is a platform. Give it a thought..

Having said this, attracting users to collaborate in an online platform is another challenge. We will discuss about this in the next post.

Why not a Wikipedia inside every organization?

The theme of Wikipedia is quite interesting “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s what we’re doing” says Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia.

When a vision for the world is clearly executed by Wikipedia, how many organizations are successful in executing this inside an organization?

A random though on why such an initiative is a failure or mediocre success in most organizations is recorded below..

1. Knowledge is power which leads to ones growth in the organization. Are employees unwilling to share their knowledge power?
2. Most of wikipedia’s contributors contribute during their free time. Are Human beings more generous to the society during non working hours?
3. Are we unable to communicate the benefit of knowledge sharing to employees?
4. Is the management not convinced of the benefits of knowledge sharing?
5. Are our organizations unwilling to invest in the technology and manpower for such an initiative?
6. Is Knowledge management an expensive development plan?

Activities during MBA to make better HR Professionals

Learning is enhanced when learning and doing happens side by side. Unfortunately during an MBA course, there is less opportunities for doing. Whatever is assigned as project works are either googleable or can be done by some creative writing :)

A summer internship is one activity which gives real life exposure to a student, but one should not really depend on that period alone. Many skills can be tried & tested inside the campus itself.
As a young HR professional conceptual understanding is desirable. More than this, one is expected to have the following skills also;

1. Event management skills
2. Conversational skills
3. Policy implementation skills
4. Negotiation skills
5. Communicating skills

Few activities which students of HR can do during B School days to enhance these skills;

• Initiate professional development events like debates, round tables, forums and play the role of event manager. You will face challenges in finding the right people, internally marketing the event, getting necessary permissions, arranging logistics, meeting people’s expectation etc., Trust me, these experiences will help you in your making.
• Any B School has at least half a dozen clubs/associations. Help them in their member selection process and play the role of HR department in their club.
• Find the skill gap among support staff members in your college and develop some interesting training program for them
• Organize mock interviews and mock group discussions and play the role of evaluator which will enhance your judgment skills
• Propose a OD plan for your own institution

Criticism on MBA HR

MBA in HR is highly criticized and questioned among all specializations. Those who have done MBA in a B School which does not have HR as its predominant specialization would have felt the same. Few common questions that MBA HR students have to answer to its peers are;

1. How can you learn people management through text books?
2. Isn’t it only theories that you learn in HR?
3. Should you really learn HR when it is something which can be easily learnt on the job?
4. You will never become a person of high importance (leave side CEO) in the organization, then why HR?
5. Isn’t it administrative and support work that you will be doing after MBA?

Think about your answers before you go ahead. My standard answers to these questions were/are;

1. How can you learn people management through text books?
A text book helps in understanding the world of people management. It refines your thought process on people management and HR issues. Without textual knowledge you will be a soldier without two hands leave aside arms.

2. Isn’t it only theories that you learn in HR?
Theories help in understanding ideal cases. When we could understand that ideal is far from achievable, theories help in working close to the ideal situation.

3. Should you really learn HR when it is something which can be easily learnt on the job?
It depends on one’s passion. Some would prefer HR management to be 100% of their KRA and choose a career in HR. Learning HR on the job is applicable to those who would like to have not more than 20% of their KRA in HR management.

4. You will never become a person of high importance (leave side CEO) in the organization, then why HR?
I will become a person of high importance to the people to whom I work for which a CEO may not become. That is a different calling. Most HR professionals have developing people as their life’s KRA and hence CEO’s role may not suit them.

5. Isn’t it support work that you will be doing after MBA?
Support is the backbone whose importance is realized only if it fails. I would like to be the backbone.