INTEGRATING HRM WITH LINE AND IR:
WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS THIS?
By Dr. C.N. Daftuar
Chief Mentor and CMD,
Salahkaar Consultants,India..
Imagine a body part (nose, lips, eye, just any) separated from the other parts of the body. How effective, you think, it could be. Something similar seems to be the case with HR departments in most organizations. Heart separated from the eyes, mouth or belly. Just imagine.
Like a human body, the whole person, a disconnected strategic human resources applications—incentive management, employee performance management, workforce scheduling, and training and learning management would look like a Human Robot of which all part have been scattered all around. Organizations can drive real ROI In HR for the company by approaching HR systems strategically by merging all applications into an integrated closed-loop system. Just like each body part has a definite function to play similarly each organizational systems and subsystems has a definite role to perform. As an example to show how strikingly the two types of bodies (Human body and Organizational structure) are similar I have designed a figure to show the parallels between them. See Figure-1 for details.
The basic idea of the present article was stimulated by certain remarks made in a function organized by the Ahmedabad, Barodaand Anand chapters of HRD National Network. The function was organized to confer Honoris Causa membership of the Net-work to eight illustrious personalities of the corporate section and the academic world of Gujarat.
One distinguished Honoris Causamember, Mr. V.N. Jikar, the then a successful MD of a jewel company-Petrophils (which later closed own)-remarked that the HR must permeate every strata of organizational hierarchy. Mr. N.R. Sheth, Ex. Director of IIM, Ahmedabad added that no distinction can be made between HRD as a line and / or staff functions. It (HRD’s function) has to be every manager’s job. It has to be assumed that way. You can’t have two kinds of managers one doing traditional (line, personnel, IR jobs etc.) and others doing new HR functions, he said.
For quite some time now certain questions have been bothering HR professionals. For example, whose baby is HRD? Why HRD should be accepted by the so called “Non-HRD Managers”? What is the difference between HRD and Personnel or What Role (s) line managers are supposed to play with reference to HRD functions? Can HRM and HRD be different than other traditional Personnel functions like IR etc., etc., The present article aims to answer some of the above questions in order to see if there could be an interface between the HRD functions and the line and particularly IR functions and, also, how HRM can integrate itself with the main stream organizational lives.
The present day organizational experts tend to view organizations as (open) systems where in every components of the system are not only interrelated, but also interdependent. Since, the very idea of the system concept in understanding organizations came from life science – where scientists including psychologists started looking at the various components of the nature as open system it would be appropriate to compare the human body system with the organizational systems. Just take a look at human body. It could simply baffle you when you realize that how complex a machine it is. Each small cell of the body contributes to keep the system turning. The respiratory system, with each breath and heart beat and various units – like lungs, heart, trachea, bronchial system and connecting blood vessels – carry out vital roles in delivering air and blood to small air sacs in the lungs. From there, carbon dioxide is removed and oxygen rich blood is transported through a network of blood vessels to the body tissues, replenishing the cells and ultimately keeping the system running.
Compare this with the life line (for example, communication channels) of the organization and you will realize the similarities – each person combining his or her skills, ideas, knowledge order to keep their organization breathing-keep the organization’s culture going and alive and ticking. The general tendency of the specialists in the fields of HRM, HRD, OD and other social sciences whether they belong to East or the West is to act like side liner psychoanalysts sitting in his coach advising or (sometimes) acting as a surgeon intervening and curing the ailments which do not belong to the organization they serve. This attitude has created several problems in the West (for example, problems of acceptability, credibility, etc.) as well as in this country. It is in a way a healthy sign that in this country we started feeling concerned about the problem even before the HRD movement had taken its roots and the term HRM was still there infrequently used. It is good
infrequently used. It is good for there is no way out. The HRM and for that matter all other HRD experts and functionaries have to (and of course should) collaborate with other functions like IR and the line managers. Though, indeed this can’t happen without some sacrifice and some give and take – here, there and (perhaps) everywhere?
If collaboration between line manager and HRM has to start and be sustained, it is imperative to understand exactly what is needed to make such a collaboration work. An attempt is made to list certain aspects which are, in my view, important for the HRM and particularly HRD and line managers’ collaboration. These are presented in form of advices to HRM and HRD professionals in the following pages.
1. Let CEO’s and the even the Board’s problems be HRM’s problems: This may be your starting point. We all talk of top’s commitment. But do we do really enough to win the confidence and commitment of the top by helping him/her in solving her/his problems?
In a manufacturing company, production had gone down in one of its shop. The HR manager intervened the concerned persons. He started meeting workers and supervisors personally to listen to their problems and if possible counsel them. He even started coming in different shifts including in the night shifts. The production shot up by about 58 percent within a month.
Result is that in spite of different kinds of apprehensions in CEO’s mind and resistance from the line managers, nobody could tell him (HR Manager) not to interfere. Soon he was in a position to make forceful interventions. If the CEO is on your side, treat it a blessing. But, if he is not enthusiastic, do not raise your hands up. Try to identify his concern areas and solve them. He will come to your side eventually if you prove yourself.
2. Believe in and share the organizational values: Perhaps this is the most important aspect that HRM professionals should learn. Day in and day out, we keep sermonizing every concerned person to identify with organizations’ goals and values. But, it seems that this talk is only for others. As if HRM functionaries are above law and / or beyond the organizations. This comment I used to make about 15 years back but unfortunately it is still true in many cases. If all other employees should share organizational values and goals, the same should be true for HR managers too. If HR nurtures different goals and values than those dear to the organization and the management, they have no business to stay there. In such a scenario, they will not be accepted by the management and sooner or later they (and their roles) will either vanish from the organization or will get marginalized. Somebody else will take your roles. If a HR manager does not subscribe to the organizational goals and values he must discuss, debate and try to convince everybody including the top management to change their goals and values in a way that they conform to the goals and values s/he cherishes. Till that happens, be with the present goals and values of the organization. Your roles are to nurture and develop the human elements of the organizational system. You are not there to turn a profit oriented organization into a charitable organization. You are not hired to do that.
If some of you feel that I am using hard words, it is well to remember that quite often we, HRM professionals join organization (s) with our own agenda and preconceived ideas-what Prof. Pradeep Khandwala (Ex. IIMA Director) called a ‘text book approach of HR’. In this process, the HR professionals tend to make HR rather bookish and mechanistic. Those bookish ideas may not reflect the operating realities of the organization.
If our (HR Professionals) vision and philosophy are different than those of the organizations then both of us (HR people and others) will operate at different mental and functional wave lengths and we all are likely to create rather than solve organizational problems.
3. Try to know the functions within the organization and its business well: This is very important that you know about the business, activities and products/services that your organization offers. There is no harm in knowing little bit of laws, rules, and regulations. Unless you have equipped yourselves with this information you are not likely to be taken seriously in the organization and may be left out. You can’t hope to be even effective HR manager. Your awareness will enable you to interact with the other managers in their language, syntax and terminologies. Imagine yourself attending a meeting of managers from different functional areas of your company where you are unable to understand or appreciate their issues and even massages. In such a situation, you make yourself a Bechara, poor fellow, “Behavioural Science Walla”, etc. I quote from statements made by a manager in a company involved in manufacturing refrigeration equipments. While describing her learning experiences out of herOB efforts, she observed that there were some initial resistance from line managers, but her perseverance paid off and before long she knew the line operation to the minutest details. And, when she “could talk to the members of different teams in their own department slangs” she found it a lot easier not only to communicate but also to build up a certain amount of trust and oneness with various groups for herself.
In the next coming few years all kinds of business are going to change tremendously. Some entirely new business and profession might crop up. HR has to evolve and keep up with the changing landscape. Only using terms like ‘strategic partner’ may not be enough. You will have to really turn into one. If you are plugged up with bookish ideas which are more philosophical than practical you are not going to be useful and may be going out of business very soon.
VVVVVVVVVV
I am emphasizing this aspect because I personally know some HRD managers not exactly knowing the processes and outputs of the organization they serve. But, the worst pat is that many of them find it rather difficult to learn this aspect. Part of the difficulty ofcourse, come from their background. Most of them (us) are from social or behavioural science background. We live to work with people and are value oriented. For most of us profit seem to be a dirty word (do not mind HRD/OD consultants charging hefty fees) and we tend to perceive ourselves as on employees’ side (their protectors) rather than on the management side. We tend to take sides. We have no business to get ourselves in the middle of boss – subordinate relationship. This is union’s job. We tend to belive that bothering about business or company’s objectives (if it is profit) and things like those are “anti-HRD” or atleast non-HRD. We philosophize the entire science and put ourselves on a high pedestal to look down upon most of the things the organization is supposed to be meant for.
Business is for business after all and anything else is secondary to it. To put it bluntly, the highest amount of employees morale and self-actualization will go to hell if the company is going red.
In one organization, which had high profile HRD, the HRD manager and the whole department had to leave when the company’s turnover saw the bottom. This happened inspite of the fact that the HRD manager had an excellent support (almost friendly) with the Chief Executive. Tell me honestly, mow many of us will continue to be in the “Service of management” by sticking to our posts as HRD functionaries, when the company’s cash flow is in serious block and you are not getting your salary for several months in a row and this (irregular salary) has become a regular feature there? Remember you are working in the company and not for the company.
We tend to believe that we are more a part of the HRD profession than are a part of the company and, in the process, we fail to be committed to what the company is doing and to its goals (though, we preach others to do just that).
Also, remember, no company is really benevolent. Any management does welfare primarily for the law and because they know that unless employees feel that they are being taken care of they would not work with enthusiasm. Companies are interested in safety and occupational health for primary reasons that if they do not do that they will have to pay compensation and also employees will not be able to work if they are not in good health.
In brief, if HRD professionals fail to integrate themselves in the organization they shall be eliminated the moment organization enters into a rough time.
Learning business is difficult. How to do it? Simply by doing, by reading, by observing and by interacting. What do they simply?
To learn a business you should be prepared to make your hands dirty. Best thing is to request the management to put you on the line job for some time. A senior manager in HRD in a Nationalized Bank, was put to line functions and he enjoyed it. It can bring you two benefits. (i) professionally you are better equipped, and (ii) personally, you are more qualified for promotion to higher positions in the organization where normally HRD professional would not reach.
Read about your organization as much as you can – its annual report, balance sheet, rules, regulations, standing orders even share market analysis. Do not be satisfied by organizing such programmes as ‘finance for non-finance’, ‘marketing for non-marketing’, ‘understanding balance sheet’. Also attend them. They could be useful to you as well.
Go to the people in the plant site, in the field and observe them doing their work. Only then you will realize their working methods, their problems, their emotions and feelings. And, only after doing this, plan for training programmes or any other intervention for them. You will enjoy doing it. I assure you interact with them. Know them. Then only you can help them. Otherwise, most of the things that you are doing may liked by people, but (mind it) may not be useful for them.
Remember the term, HOWTHORNE EFFECT. Expression of good feelings about a training programme may not necessarily reflect its usefulness
4. CAN YOU MAKE LINE OWN YOUR IDEAS AND PROJECTS?
You may have best of ideas and projects, but they are not likely to work if line people do not view them as theirs. This can happen in spite of top managements’ support.
Here is an example:
A fast growing Pharmaceutical company’s Chief Executive directly appointed a bright MBA as Deputy Manager (HRD). Immediately, he was perceived as a blue eyed boy of the CMD. But, unfortunately the CMD could not be around all the time to protect him as ‘his child’. Everybody else who were senior to him, and there were many started treating him very badly. Result, the fellow had to decide to leave within two years and he left. There could be several such cases.
That means, one of the major challenge for the HRD function may be to sit back and let the line have some influence over their program design and system. You can let this happen even if you clearly see that you had better ideas. Experiences are that your best of ideas in program, design can be sabotaged if line is not convinced.
In other words, you may have to choose some times between commitment and involvement on the one hand and quality on the other. Certainly you can give quality programmes but if the people for whom the programmes has been designed are not committed to it or do not feel involved into it the result is not going to be enchanting. If it is not lines programme it is not likely to work. Everybody will see to it that it fails. So, get them own the programme. Make them feel that it is theirs. Get them involved in planning and implementing.
5. CHECK FOR YOUR CREDIBILITY :
If you do the above mentioned, you are likely to increase your credibility in the eyes of the line people. Knowing the business and sharing their values and goals allows you to identify “real” problems and also to identify solutions. By helping the company to improve business, you will add credibility to the HRD functions and to everything that you might be trying to achieve. I am suggesting you to take active interest in components of business – production, services, marketing, selling, compensation and whatever.
That will definitely mean sticking your neck out. Once you are active with business of the company you run certain risk. All businesses involve risk. You will get recognition and credibility if you succeed but also you can get into trouble if you do not know what you are doing. Risk taking is always a two edged weapon. How long after all HRD can take the scope route by pleading time and again that HRD can not show its worth in terms of cost/benefit analysis? You can’t convince all the people all the time with such clichés. If you want to be accepted by all concerned, you will have to prove your worth in terms of rupees and paisa.
In other words, if you expect the line to respect you, you must learn to take business risk in pitting forward your ideas (may be HRD ideas) in business matters like those of the line people. You can’t have the cake and eat it too. Ofcourse, you may fail at times. You may loose your cake some times. But, it is worthwhile.
As an example, we can suggest a scene. Imagine the production manager comes up with a proposal for a new product or design. It is advisable that you respond at that stage and explain to him he has got to change the performance management (for example!) system, invest more in training and budget for a couple of more things if he wants himself to succeed. You can’t sit back and watch to get him into trouble and then advise how to get out of it. In this since you have to be proactive rather than reactive.
Incidentally, this term proactive has also been badly misunderstood by most HRD specialists. They apply it only for organizing training programmes and / or for OD interventions. They forget two things : (a) Proactive you have to be. But not only in training and O. D. areas but also in formulating your (HRD) contribution to the growth of organization and for the growth of the business. After all O. D. should mean organization development and not only development of the human element on the organization. (b) Many times what we think as proactive actions are nothing but certain clichés from Western researches. Any academically strong professional will tell you that many things that you have heard for the first time by some, the so called O. D. experts are infact 40-50 years old concepts which might have already failed and have been discarded in Western systems-the place of their birth. The most striking example that immediately comes to my mind is the talks and often lively discussion about Theory X and Y. In research oriented academic circles, even inIndia, no body gives a damn to this theory. Many university departments of psychology (mind it they are psychological theories) have even stopped referring to these concepts long back except for their historical values (reference).
And, also, in being pro-active do not try to go ahead of the enterprise – the business unit. you can guide the line and the management but let them lead. You lead by following you clients – the line and the management. Learning by following should not be a new concept to you. You have been teaching this concept for long (the best definition of democratic/participative leader is that the democratic leader is he who leads by following his followers).
Apply this to yourself?
6. COLLOBORATE WITH THE LINE:
The important part of ownership is getting the “buy in” and this you can get if you cultivate the habit of listening to what the line has to say. Understanding the business is the way to credibility. Once you are able to do it, you can deliver something that fits line managers’ need. Listen them and let them know that you listen to them.
7. MAKE YOUR PROGRAMME ACCOUNTABLE:
When you project(s) fails do not pass the buck for blame. Cultivate enough courage to standup and say “Yes, I made this decision and I am responsible for good or bad. I made this decision because I thought that was the right way to go about it”. Do not bother much if in the process, someone else takes (gets) the credit. For, I repeat, it does not matter who does it. The important thing is that some HRD effort has been made and it succeeded. As long as this happens you are there, you are safe and yours, as well as that of HRD’s future is secured. Down the road there will be a pay off.
Mind it this has been the major irritant, always, in getting any acceptability for HRD. Line people are accustomed to see things in terms of profit and loss, in terms of cost/benefit ratio. You can’t escape it always. Accept it and be willing to be accountable for whatever you have done.
Some companies have started to play with the idea that its training centre should earn for itself. Gujarat State Fertilizers Company (G.S.F.C.) atBarodais one such example. It is legitimate for a company to expect results on projects on which it has spent time, money and effort. It is not a bad idea that HRD should earn its keep.
This type of accountability is easier if you collaborate with the line. For example, if a group of GETs are appointed and if you have been made responsible to induct them do not be just satisfied by your induction budget and running the Induction Training. Do the cost/benefit analysis of your programme. Here is a simple example.
Suppose a new worker is recruited and is paid Rs. 1920.00 a month. Without a systematic training programme it would take one month to learn the job sufficiently enough for him to perform optimally with minimum supervision. The cost calculation will be something like this.
Direct Wage Cost Rs. 1920.00
Learning time cost wage Rs. 960.00
Estimated cost of supervision,
spoilage, overheads, etc. Rs. 400.00
Return in productive work Rs. 560.00
Total Rupees…………. 1920.00
If by systematic training, the learning time can be reduced to one week then over a period of one month time the cost structure will be something like the following:
Direct Wage Cost Rs. 1920.00
Learning time cost wage Rs. 450.00
Estimated cost of supervision,
spoilage, overheads, etc. Rs. 270.00
Return in productive work Rs. 1200.00
Total Rupees…………. 1920.00
Cost have been reduced from 1360 to 720 (450+270). Therefore this suggest that the organization could have spent upto Rs. 640/- to train the person to accomplish this result. This seems to be too simplistic but if you actually calculate to cost that is involved between the training of first appointment and the time when you begin to get a return on your investment in the new worker, the total cost can be surprisingly high. This type of simple calculations can lead to a conclusion that millions can be saved in ten years if we include cost involving all cadres of employees. You can also ass soft data (satisfaction, for example) to this exercise.
You can also perhaps, think of doing a little bit of experimentation to prove your point. For a simple experimental design – you can select two groups: (i) Experimental (Training) Group and (ii) Control (No Training) Group. Compare the performance of the two groups over a period of time (say, six months, for example). Design would look something like the following:
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Experimental Group Control Group
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Before Training
a. Pre-measure
(productivity) 200,00 200,00
b. Pre-measure 16% 16%
(other parameters) Loss (-) 100,00 Loss (-) 100,00
Estimated annual a. 200,000 200000
margin (before
training) b. (-) 100,000 (-) 100,000
……………………………. …………………………
Total 100,000 100,000
After Training
a. Post-measure 300,000 200,000
(Productivity)
b. Post-measure 8% 16.5% (Likely to
(Other parameter increase in
e.g., absenteeism absence of
intervention)
loss (-) 50,000 loss (-) 103,125
Estimated annual a. 300,000 200,000
margin after
training b. -50,000 -103,125
Total 2,50,000 96,875
Margin Gains a. 100,000 a. Nil
through training b. 50,000 b. In absence of
intervention
increased
loss (-)
103,125-00
Total (GAIN/LOSS) 1,50,000 (-) 103,125
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Once you are equipped with this kind of data you can start tooting your own horn. For example, you can hold special meetings with the line managers and top management and show them, the result. Do not hesitate taking outside help to conduct such evaluative studies to prove your print. You can also publish your results in the company’s news letters. Then, you can use your result to justify your further training expenditure. Formally communicate your results to trainees. It will reinforce their progress. Develop a bottom-line file. Maintain an ongoing collection of materials that justify the existence of HRD. Prepare and distribute annual reports citing results in rupees and paise saved and earned. For example, in the above case, you can show increase in profit and / or decrease in loss (total Rs. 1,50,000) to the company. Once you are able to do it, people will respect you. You do not have to seek CEO’s blessings for your existence.
In short, you have to be result oriented rather than blessing (of CEO’s_ oriented.
This article is a collection of some sub vocal thinking that the present author has been doing for some time. You are welcome to add your own thinking and strategies to become viable wherever you are. At the present stage, HRD inIndiais on cross roads. I am not suggesting that any of these cross-roads is leading to the demise of HRD. HRD is here to stay. Only its form and philosophy are at stake. If we want it to survive as a practicable ideology, we need to be non-bookish and more pragmatic, more accommodative, more down – to – earth Practiceners. We are responsible for it. And, we shall be responsible for its growth (or extinction!). Time to decide is NOW!
