Canadian HR Reporter

STRATEGIC CAPABILITY NETWORK'S PANEL of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada's business community. eir commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies. CANADIAN HR REPORTER April 17, 2017 EXECUTIVE SERIES 15 www.scnetwork.ca Join our professional community of Canadian HR & Organizational Leaders: • Connecting @ monthly events • Collaborating with peers • Challenging conventional thinking The Power of Human Capital CULTIVATING LEADERSHIP FOR 35 YEARS Great Leaders GROW www.scnetwork.ca Adopting a marketing mindset Five SCNetwork members engage in a back-and-forth on Jeanne Meister's presentation Jan van der Hoop: For me, today came back once again to design theory and the opportunity (some might call it an imperative) for HR to move its products and services — our value prop — up the value chain from commodity, to product and to experience. Employees of all ages and back- grounds (no, it's not just a mil- lennial "thing") are demanding a more engaging experience at work with less friction and more joy and meaning, and this applies to every aspect of the working experience. Two items in the presentation by Jeanne Meister, partner with Future Workplace, really resonat- ed for me, and they were almost throwaway comments in the dy- ing minutes: • Our real job isn't HR. Bots will be handling much of that that soon enough, doing it cheaper and better than humans. No, our role is to help our organiza- tion win in the marketplace. • e way we help our organiza- tions win is by getting out of our offi ces, learning from employees about what's not working and what they wish was different, then blowing it up and reinvent- ing it. Over and over and over. Edmond Mellina: You are right, Jan, these two points in the dying minutes were little gems of wisdom. I also liked Jeanne's point at the start of her speech about the im- portance of adopting a "marketing mindset": We don't have the an- swers, our customers do (mean- ing employees and the business). So, we need to engage with them, co-experiment with them and grow comfortable with "being in a constant beta stage," as she said. Another key point for me: As HR evolves its focus from service efficiency to employee experi- ence, it should partner with other functions. Jeanne mentioned marketing and IT, which makes lots of sense. Indeed, if HR is to adopt a marketing mindset, then it should reach out to the pros in marketing and get some help. And in our increasingly digital world, the CIO and her team must be key partners, too. As I often say, "I need your help" is the most powerful phrase when embarking on a transformation. Jeanne touched on that power throughout her presentation: "I need your help… employees, mar- keting and IT." Tracey White: is intersec- tion of HR and marketing prac- tices has been anticipated for a long time. While HR has adopted marketing techniques in some ar- eas like recruitment, for instance, what Jeanne suggests goes much further. Examples of organiza- tions such as Airbnb, which is re-imagining the HR function to make it the driver of the "em- ployee experience," represent a signifi cantly new mindset. When you add Jeanne's per- spective to that of people like Dal- las-based business advisor Ram Charan, who openly called for the disintermediation of HR account- abilities, you can see the emer- gence of an exciting new vision. ere's no doubt that bots will perform HR's repetitive, repli- cable, administrative tasks in the very near future. is will free practitioners to move forward, just as pioneers like Airbnb, to help the business win in the marketplace. As our recent speakers on be- haviourial economics and design thinking have shown us, the tools are available to help HR make this leap. What is really needed is a mindset shift not only by HR practitioners, but by the business leaders they serve. ere is a lingering status quo that traps HR in an outdated per- sonnel administration mindset. It's not good for the profession or for business. Paul Pittman: I agree, Tracey. Encased in our little pod bom- barded with criticism about how we don't "get it," HR occasionally peers out to grab the latest fad with which to try and attract the attention of the corner offi ce in an attempt to make our role relevant. Anything with a millennial prefi x or suffi x attached to it cur- rently seems to fi t that bill. Smart boomer consultants leaping on this opportunity use astute mar- keting to grab our attention. e intersection of marketing with HR is that HR leaders are, more than ever before, consumers of it and, as explained by Jeanne, caused by the dramatic increase in self- employed HR folks trying to leave their impression upon you. Strip away the "marketing" an- ecdotes and best-in-class lists and Jeanne reveals timeless messages about what HR does: • Design thinking — another theme of the moment — is what HR has always done. It fi gures out what it is that employees need and creates an environment that responds to those needs to capture their best contribution. • Cohorts come and go — our job is to always be alert to changes in the workforce, manifesting in diff erent needs, be they minority groups, contingency hires or ar- bitrage recruits. It's what we do, always. • Helping our company win — duh. Why are we there if not for this? e sole reason for our ex- istence will never change. What we need to constantly remember is what our parents used to tell us: "Just like everyone else, you are diff erent." And that is equally true for our employer. One size doesn't fi t all, not even most. e employee response you choose needs to refl ect the needs of your business — if you are a service business, guess what? e presentation was superb in reinforcing HR's very impor- tant role (and the things we have always needed to be really good at) by contextualizing with some current trends. Not obvious at fi rst but some great takeaways: • Only boomers talk about mil- lennials and how to respond to them. • Bots are programs — if boomers needed that translated. • Consulting fi rms are followers, not leaders. Don't get distracted by the fl a- vour of the month. Van der Hoop: So, I'm curious. Evolution is a tricky thing. It's not always graceful or easy, and almost always painful. Jeanne's slide with Charles Darwin's picture, and the correct version of the quote that is most often misquoted, reminded us that the species that adapt most quickly to changing conditions are those most likely to survive. at quote, frankly, stood in stark contrast to the conversations I overheard at my table and others around us. e gig economy, the shifting expectations of the work- force, the rise of bots, the notion that HR needs to "get out of HR and into the business and talk to people about their perspectives" — none of this is particularly new. And yet, these concepts were greeted by far too much "What the…?" and wide-eyed surprise and disbelief for my comfort. Is it possible that we as senior HR professionals are not a suf- fi ciently adaptive species, or is it more likely that too many of us simply aren't keeping up with what's going on (and sailing past us) in the external environment? Ian Hendry: By happenstance, I was meeting with a CHRO the day following the event and he mentioned a career discussion he had just had with a direct report at the director level. He described the gap in her development and specifi cally her business acumen, and that she really needed to understand the business, the product lines, how profi tability was derived, the com- petitive landscape, etcetera. In other words, she needed to get "inside" the business and by understanding it fully, it would enable her to provide more ideas and solutions on how to "help" the business grow and improve. is future was not appealing to her. e need for business acumen was a requirement three decades ago, so it reinforces the question you just posed. Is the profession not seeing the writing on the wall: "Adapt or die?" Mellina: I've seen the same dy- namics at play in IT. For over two decades now, the key to succeed as an IT leader has been to "think business fi rst, technology second." Yet, I still see lots of tech leaders out there who think backward. Usually, they don't get too high in the hierarchy. And if they do (how? why?), they don't last very long in the CIO role. HR > pg. 16 Is it possible we as senior HR professionals are not a suffi ciently adaptive species? PANELLISTS: • Ian Hendry, president of the Strategic Capability Network and vice-president of HR and administration at Interac in Toronto • Jan G. van der Hoop, president of Fit First Technologies in Toronto • Tracey White, owner and managing director at Strategy in Action in Toronto • Paul Pittman, founder and president of the Human Well in Toronto • Edmond Mellina, co-founding president of Orchango Ian Hendry Paul Pittman Jan van der Hoop Tracey White Edmond Mellina

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