Here’s the next installment of the Coaches’ Corner:

Situation:

I know that one of the big things these days is to be strategic as the best way to add value to my organization and to increase my own “stock” as an HR professional. I have been in HR in San Diego for almost 11 years now and so far have done quite well.

I have a certificate in Human Resources and my undergraduate degree is in Business Administration so I consider myself to be both well rounded and sufficiently educated to deal with most situations. I am currently an HR Manager of a medium sized company and have been there for 3 & ½ years.

My challenge at present is in finding the correct balance between “being strategic” and doing the operational and administrative duties of the job. My boss recently went to a seminar and heard a lot about how the HR role was different than years before and now we are contributing at a higher level to our organizations. When we talked about it, he was very excited and told me that he wanted me to be more strategic and that he was going to hold me accountable for that from now on. Since I thought I was making sufficient progress in this area, I am really at a loss now to figure out what to do next.

Observation / Recommendation:

There are a couple of areas that need to be addressed. The first of which is be certain of the overall relationship that the Human Resources department has with your organization. What specific expectations exist from a long term and day to day perspective? At what level do you normally interact with senior management? How do they see you and how do you want to be seen? It’s good to anchor here so you will have a good sense of how wide any real gap may be. Below are three steps to consider:

1. Review your current goals to ascertain those that are strategic in nature.

2. Meet with your supervisor to ensure you understand what he or she means by strategic and come to an agreement on actions you would be responsible for executing to achieve organizational goals.

3. Determine what resources may be necessary (and yet unallocated) to carry out any new responsibilities.

The second area to examine may be your own role and competency level in the execution of your organization’s strategic deliverables. Most HR people are generalists and may be stronger in one area than another.

Before you embark upon your strategic mission, take an honest self-assessment to determine these things:

I. Are your current skills (or that of your staff) a match for what’s needed?

II. Do you have a thorough understanding of your business so that your input and recommendations will be in sync with what’s really going on?

III. Will it be necessary to obtain some form of outside training? And if so, how long will it take relative to the time necessary to achieve your goals?

IV. Is third party assistance a viable and cost effective option at this time?

V. How comfortable are you or will you be operating at a strategic level?

Additionally, consider consulting with a mentor or other trusted individual to get an unbiased and honest look at yourself relative to your strengths and areas for development. It’s not unusual for each of us to have blind spots about ourselves. The opinions of select others can make a real difference in this area.

Being strategic need not be difficult or expensive. Most HR professionals weave strategic actions into their day to day tasks and make tremendous contributions to their organizations. Taking the time to define and articulate what that means individually can make all the difference to your organization and ultimately your career success.

I have begun a column that will appear in a local newsletter called the COACHES CORNER. It will contain a real world question or situation from one of my clients along with my response / recommendation to help the stated problem. It is my plan to share this with you as well so you can obtain the benefit of the information provided.

I invite you to contact me with your real world scenario that you would like to get some input on that would help you as well. I will publish those that, in my opinion, would have the most interest and appeal to my audience. Below is the first one.

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Situation:

I’ve been in my job as an HR Generalist for about 3 years now. For the most part it has been OK. I like my 2 co-workers and the pay is fine for me and my family. The issue I have is with my boss. She works in the next building over from me so we really don’t see each other much except when we have a department meeting or some such thing like that.

The specific problem I have is that I really don’t believe she cares for me much. She hasn’t said anything directly to me like I did something that irritated her, but when she is around me, we don’t engage in any kind of conversation that one could call comfortable or friendly. And she seems to have a problem maintaining eye contact with me.

My last performance evaluation was OK as I was rated GOOD overall. There were a few things for me to improve upon, but nothing major as I saw it. Since that review about 6 months ago, I think my performance has been pretty good.

This has caused me some degree of concern and I’m wondering if she may be planning to fire me or something. I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what may be driving her lack of friendly attitude toward me but nothing comes to mind. I have asked my coworkers if they notice anything like I do or what their experience is (without telling them my personal concern), but they don’t see what I do. I know that I should approach her with my concerns, but I really don’t feel comfortable doing that and simply don’t know how she might react if I do so. I also believe that bringing my true concerns out to my peers will change things between us and I definitely don’t want to do that. What should I do?

Observation / Recommendation:

Unfortunately, your issue is all too common. In the workplace as outside of it, we find that everyone will not care for us for various reasons. However, at our places of employment, it clearly can have a more pronounced impact on us.

From what is stated above, it appears that there is no acute performance matter to be dealt with that is driving your feeling. It seems to be a clearly interpersonal concern. What you don’t know also is whether your supervisor really likes you or not.

One of the first areas of focus with these kinds of occurrences is to confront the situation head on. Now this doesn’t mean taking a “bull in a china shop” approach, but it does require more of a direct approach to ascertain the facts vs what is perceived to be true. One way may be to set up time to speak with your supervisor one on one to address how you feel and to discover if what you assume is true. This will take a degree of courage to be sure, but think of what we as HR people advise others to do. We typically recommend they communicate directly with their supervisors where possible because we know that relationship will drive the quality of life for the employee. That is no less true for us.

You mention that you don’t feel comfortable sharing your personal concerns with any of your coworkers which is understandable. How about another fellow employee outside of the department that you can trust to keep your situation confidential? Or if you have a mentor, calling upon them to help you decide what may be best for you is a great idea. It can be very helpful to enlist the assistance of an unbiased person to help you see things more clearly and objectively.

It’s imperative that we remember that reality based decisions are what will drive success for us and the business. Isn’t it better to know the truth vs spending your days feeling bad about something that has yet to be proven? It will definitely affect your quality of life. Ultimately your growth as a Human Resources professional will be impacted by your ability to navigate through situations such as these on your way to greater levels of responsibility and success.

Most HR people consider themselves to be pretty good listeners. After all, you spend a great deal of your day hearing the concerns of others and are expected to respond in a productive way for the benefit of both the individual and the organization.

It’s been said that over 45% of your day is spent in a listening mode. That’s a lot of time! The question is, are you good at it?

Below are 7 habits of the poor listener. Check yourself against them to see where you might have room for improvement.

1. You deem the subject uninteresting and thus dismiss the message altogether

2. You focus on criticizing the manner of the speaker vs their message

3. The subject raised causes you to be become overstimulated or excited

4. As the person is talking, you only listen for facts vs including the non-verbal or emotional aspects of the message

5. Fake paying attention to the speaker

6. You tolerate or create distractions while the speaker is communicating

7. Avoid technical aspects of what’s shared thus missing potentially critical parts of the message

Attitude is much more important than fact, and attitudes toward management and it’s goals are improved only when management puts its emphasis on listening, not telling.

What do you think?

GREAT IDEA! One of my clients had a flash of brilliance that I want to share with you.

How about using the blog as a forum for obtaining HR career questions from my audience and then simply provide the answer so everyone can see and get ideas?

Sounds good to me! So if you have any kind of career question unique to HR people, go ahead and provide it in the form of a comment, and I will provide a response. This is a great way to get lots of information to a larger audience fast!!

What do you think?

Welcome to the communication vehicle for Human Resources professionals. We are a rare breed with special needs different than most members of management and staff. Often those needs don’t get expressed very well or by individuals within the field itself.

The mission is to provide periodic commentary and information of interest and value to the HR practitioner. You can expect to see information on such subjects as:

> Opinions of leading practitioners in the field
> Lessons Learned
> News items relevant to HR
> Articles of interest
> Coaching related items
> Personal observations

Of course other ideas that make sense are fair game and will be shared. Your input is what will make the flow of the blog work. Sharing with others is the magic and purpose of our communication.

I look forward to learning and giving with all of you.

There is so much going on @humanresourcescoaching.com!