Recently, the EMA sent out their regular newsletter to members (of whom, for full disclosure, FixHR is one) with a highlighted “insight“. It caught my attention for all the wrong reasons. For a start, it seemed totally AI generated!:
“The relationship between CEOs and CPOs* will be increasingly important for long term growth and internal alignment.”
I found myself thinking, ‘why make such a fuss of that statement? What’s to highlight? What’s new here? Is that not so obvious it’s almost a truism?’
At FixHR, we spend a lot of time working alongside fantastic business owners of large and small businesses who genuinely care about their people. Care and concern are rarely a problem. Where things start to unravel is often in the gap between what leaders intend and what actually happens day to day. And as I said in a Linked In comment about the EMA announcement, from what I see, strategy does not fail in the boardroom, it gets lost in translation.
* ie Chief People Officers
The real problem is not effort. It is integration.
I would say most people issues do not begin with a formal complaint or a serious employment matter. These unwelcome actions are always symptoms of something far more complicated, and yet kind of simple, too. They start small:
- Policies exist but are not really very relevant or well understood
- Leaders are unsure how to apply their legal obligations in real situations
- Conversations are delayed because they feel uncomfortable (we wrote a whole blog on this phenomenon!)
- Decisions are made reactively rather than early and with confidence
Individually, these do not look like major risks. But collectively, and over time, they cannot help but create inconsistency, frustration, and exposure you did not plan for. This is what it looks like when HR sits on the outside of your business, in manuals and under the label “compliance” rather than being properly integrated into the day to day.
Where alignment actually lives
It’s easy to think about strategy and culture as if they sit in different places, but they definitely do not. Or at least they should not!
In reality they meet in the daily decisions that leaders make for their business. Every conversation, call and moment of judgement leading a business forward is both culture and strategy working together. That is why the relationships at the top of a business matter so much. Not just CEO and CPO in a corporate sense that EMA were referring to in our quote above, but the connection between business direction and people decisions in any business, of any size.
If that relationship is not working well, alignment will always feel just out of reach, no matter how much money you spend on strategy sessions or HR expertise, or how good the plan looks on paper.
HR is no longer a project
One of the biggest shifts we are seeing around us in FixHR is a move away from one-off HR fixes. Is that something you see too? (Maybe it’s just the stage our clients are at?) In a one-off HR fix, policies get written and templates are created – all the compliance boxes are ticked. And despite all that, the day-to-day experience in the workplace does not always improve. Ugh.
HR needs to become a living part of your business, rather than something you do from time to time when the pain of attendance, attitude, productivity or conflict is too much to ignore! It’s not just a checklist or form to be completed, it’s part of the business that needs to be lived out.
When it is integrated well, great HR looks very different:
- Leaders have access to practical advice when they need it
- People decisions are made with more confidence and less delay
- Risks are identified early and attended to, rather than after something has escalated
- Processes actually reflect how the business operates
Great HR becomes part of the rhythm of the business, not a tool that is pulled out when there is a problem.
The challenge is real
For small to medium businesses in New Zealand, this matters more than ever. You are managing a hang of a lot right now! Employees’ expectations are changing as unemployment and the economy continue to bend and flex. There is an increasing awareness of employee rights and employer obligations, in a context for many of us which is increasingly limited with sinking lids and winter ills. Meantime we all appreciate, if we are not moving forward with strategy and business growth, we might easily be left behind. It’s a lot!
Trying to manage all of that reactively is exhausting. And often, it is not until something goes wrong with our people (or business in general) that the gaps become visible.
From reactive to integrated
Happily – hear me here – the shift I am talking about is not about doing more HR! (Phew!) But it is about doing it differently. It’s about getting strategic with your strategy and your people 😉
It is about:
- connecting your business strategy with your people approach
- making HR practical, usable, and relevant to daily decisions
- having support that helps you think clearly before issues escalate
When these things become your inhale and exhale, something lovely will occur. You and your other leaders feel more settled as teams experience more consistency. The business will start to feel more aligned.
Take a moment
Rather than paying someone to take you through an extensive exercise to identify gaps and concerns, why don’t you step back and looked at your business today and ask:
- Where are your people decisions reinforcing your strategy?
- Where are your people decisions undermining your strategy?
- Is there something you need to tweak in your growth or business strategy to better align with the people you currently have involved in your business?
- How can you better integrate your people and your strategy for business?
This is the space you can make a significant difference in the direction and feel of your business. It is also, probably, where the real work sits!
Are you ready?
At FixHR, we work alongside businesses that are ready to make HR feel more connected, practical, integrated, and genuinely useful. Some of our clients only ever want consultancy to help deal with things when they get tense or ugly. But others are ready to make changes that mean good HR can be more consistent and embedded in their day-to-day operations.
We do not over engineer things. We are not reactive and we are not disconnected, and consequently the HR service we provide is clear, steady support that helps you lead well and move forward with confidence.
If that is what you are looking for, we would love to have a conversation. Make a time to discuss this (or any other people-concern) with Ainsley HERE.
