DESIGNING THE WRONG SOLUTIONS
There are two things in common across most HR transformation
strategies.
1. First, they are decidedly and explicitly moving HR away from
being an administrative function – call that “First Wave HR.”
This is a good thing and much needed.
2. Second, they are moving HR to a more professional
organization that delivers a range of programs and
services – call that “Second Wave HR.” As a result of this
professionalization, the majority of transformation efforts
are functional strategies – grow talent acquisition, evolve
succession planning and build people analytics, for example.
Larger organizations now have upwards of 25 different HR
functions, each of which focuses on growing itself as much as possible,
resulting in a series of complicated programs and services
that become overwhelming and annoying to the individual employee
or manager experiencing them on the other side. Much of
this is driving by the almost-always functional structure of HR
organizations and has turned HR into a multi-headed monster.
While the majority of HR transformation efforts are simply
growing and expanding Second Wave HR organizations, what is
really needed for the future is to radically redefine the HR strategy
and the HR organizational structure to focus on the end-to-end
integrated employee experience – what can be called “Third Wave
HR.”
If First Wave HR is about administrative functions and Second
Wave HR is about HR programs and services, Third Wave HR is
all about the integrated employee experience.
And that presents a challenge for HR leaders – while the shift
from First Wave to Second Wave was linear, predictable, standardized
and about more, the shift from Second Wave to Third
Wave is a radical rethink, requires venturing out into unknown
worlds and is, in fact, about fewer, simpler, customized solutions
(not programs and services) delivered at the right time and in the
right context.
Yet, scan most HR transformation strategies today and the
majority of what is being resourced and prioritized are Second
Wave strategies.
DELIVERING WITH THE WRONG TOOLS
Even in the rare case where we are solving the right problems and
designing the right solutions for them, we often fall short on turning
vision into reality – by not delivering well enough, fast enough
or big enough.
This shows up in practice in a number of ways:
1. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail:
Often, the approach taken to build new solutions looks
no different than how the organization normally works –
meetings after meetings, partially committed resources and
getting caught up in stakeholder reviews and approvals means
what comes out the other end fits perfectly into organization
and delivers few of the innovations originally imagined.
2. Boiling the ocean, missing the lighthouse: In a world
where teams feel busier than ever with ongoing delivery
and emerging demands, an overload of “priorities” results
in incremental progress in each without ever reaching the
lighthouse on any.
3. Stuck in a mindset of control: Ultimately, most true
transformation efforts are personal – they are about the
ability of teams, but particularly leaders, to have the kind of
self-awareness and humility to be able to let go of beliefs and
things they cherish most and fundamentally transform their
own relationship with control.
Ultimately, if HR is to have even a chance at leapfrogging into
the future, it needs to move beyond incrementalism and fundamentally
re-imagine the why, how, who, when and where of its
identity from the ground up for the new world of work. n
Hamoon Ekhtiari is the founder and CEO of Audacious Futures,
a global innovation engine for powering future-ready people,
organizations and societies. Attend Ekhtiari’s session at #HRPAAC,
“Future of HR: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of
Disruption,” on Jan. 31 at 10:00 a.m.
professional practice
THE PROBLEM NEEDS TO BE
FUNDAMENTALLY REDEFINED TO
RECOGNIZE THE REALITY THAT THE
FUTURE OF HR ISN’T ABOUT HR, IT’S
ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORK.
Who is Danny / Shutterstock.com
48 ❚ CONFERENCE ISSUE 2018 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL