Human Resources. It’s time we sat down with you for a change. It’s not about compensation. It’s not about the manager. And no it’s not about whether our gym membership is subsidized or not.
All those are great.
Notice how you’re bracing for contact waiting to hear what you did wrong, which sounds pretty much what most conversations with HR feel like. And this is precisely the point we need to discuss.
We know how amazing and integral HR is to the functioning of any company. They are most likely the first line of contact candidates will have and are tasked with screening potential difference makers, and at times some you lose to attrition. And when ushering candidates into the company as employees, from onboarding, compensation, damage control, you name it, human resources takes on a great share of what experience employees will have.
But on the flip side, certain perceptions can override the immense necessity and role HR plays in the workplace. Current data suggests employees regard HR in somewhat apprehensive terms; HR doesn’t actually serve the interests of the employees who depend on them, but rather the company in the event of misconduct or mistreatment. This leads to feelings of resentment and distrust where employees shield themselves from being forthcoming about their issues. For all the talk of transparency and openness in the bylaws of company culture, employee sentiment says otherwise.
If employees can’t feel like they can say what needs to be said, especially from things from the workplace, this will only foster apprehension within the office that leads to a toxic culture.
We must also acknowledge that human resources is a widely unappreciated part of the business, which is why setting the proper expectations between HR and those it serves, which are the employees, needs to be examined. One big thing we need to point out is that HR is not a stand-in for therapy or counseling; there are a tremendous amount of instances where, unfairly, HR members have had to deal with fellow employees’ personal crises on multiple topics that go beyond the scope of what HR should be handling.
And due to this perception employees have HR, based on polls, about 32% of HR members have considered quitting their job due to ‘disjointed processes,’ but more tellingly because of the lack of respect they have gotten from other members across various teams.
As we can see perceptions, self-worth, and how people feel can have strikingly dramatic effects on the way business, which for all intents and purposes is supposedly guided by the holy grail, ‘the bottom line,’ actually has. While HR does have a negative perception by employees, they actually consider themselves to be the most valued by upper management according to research done by Skynova, with sales and production feeling the least respected. In that same survey, Skynova aptly points out that job performance is very much correlated with respect and acknowledgement. The extreme irony is, according to this same survey, management actually values HR the least.
What we need is education. Perceptions usually are murky and lead to these kinds of data points because the truth and the reality is obscured due to a lack of real connection. Employee sentiment, for both HR and non-HR, can be improved when both sides come to the table. As discussed in a previous article on leadership, negative perceptions and lack of respect can be overcome through clarity. Whether clarity of thought and expectations, these can be useful tools in getting everyone to understand as clearly as possible.
Let’s look at two solutions on how we can improve HR’s standing among employees. While we can’t promise that the dreadful random calendar meetings added to your agenda, or the aforementioned slowburn conversation style leading to something negative, will forever be ended because of this article - we hope it can - the least we can do is try and create a more positive picture. Disclaimer: we’re not here to PR on behalf of HR or manufacture a more rosier image so employees will begin to blindly trust or buy-in. This is simply a way for both parties to coexist peacefully and dissuade an us-vs-them culture at work.
Humans First, HR Second; Compliance is Important, But So Is Performance/Behavior
LaRosa’s CPO, Steve Browne, conveyed this thought in a very insightful conversation he had with Academy To Innovate HR (AIHR), alongside where he also wrote about the same topic on LinkedIn two years ago. Browne states the perception of HR as described above, stems from both non-HR and HR people tending to focus on the “negative experiences” they have with one another. If we can go away from reactionary judgment calls with one member of a department, we’ll all be better off.
Though on the same token, Browne believes HR should be driving the initiative to change this perception. He posits that HR spends too much time on ‘conformity’ vs fostering people to be their best versions. This harkens back to a previous article we covered on psychological safety, where when employees can’t be themselves you lose out on revenue and increase costs, perception aside.
HR should start, as Browne suggests, by focusing a little more on the behavior/performance end of HR versus the - of course vitally necessary - but overstretched compliance approach. I.e., instead of harping so much on dress codes and quotas, ‘what’s the behavior,’ that will lead to people coming away inspired and moved to act.
We’ve mentioned before the importance of leading by example, but doing so leads to a more positive work environment, and important to our discussion on HR’s perception, trust and respect.
Practices To Consider Implementing - Equipping The First Line of Defense & AI's Power
“It really comes down to: Who’s your boss, and how much do they back you?”
This is a line from Colleen McCreary, who served as CPO at Credit Karma for a while, from a great article in Fast Company (FC) commenting on making tough decisions when there’s a disconnect between advocating for employees while also serving companies’ interests.
The burden of employee advocacy and company fidelity HR professionals balance cannot be overstated, as this may rest at the heart of this overall discussion on perception.
FC mentions, to ease this burden, that instead of having HR as the first point of escalation, managers should be trained in a way where they can grapple with initial trigger points that usually end up immediately on HR’s desk and have an understanding of when to involve HR. More times than not, according to actual HR professional testimony, managers will ‘hide behind HR members’ when issues arise falsely associating their ire onto HR instead of managers.
But even still, this is becoming increasingly difficult as the scope of HR duties has only risen since the pandemic, with people issues soaring and in need of HR. As FC noted in their article, some HR teams participated in decisions regarding layoffs; while some have done it right, many have had harrowing experiences at the same time.
A second practice to consider is utilizing the power of AI.
The biggest power of AI is the ability to automate remedial and certain administrative tasks, which, given the larger job duties of HR, can allow the pooling of energy and resources towards more higher priority tasks. Alongside that, a lot of focus has been dedicated towards the actual hiring process using AI that have helped ease tasks such as screening resumes, but also with reducing biases and ‘candidate diversity.’
In the actual workplace as it relates to HR perception, Aon, a firm specializing in risk mitigation, used their own proprietary machine learning product to look at high-cost claimants - a group of members on health insurance plans that account for the majority of healthcare expenses - at a multinational employer's company.
High-cost claimants, as of 2023, tend to spend over $100,000 on medical resources, but relevant to this article is “approximately 56 percent of high-cost claimants have a diagnosed mental health condition, compared with a rate of 37 percent among non-high-cost claimants.” Today, mental health is rampant post pandemic and tends to show up in the workplace in the form of performance, and when perceptions of HR, who are tasked with ‘people issues’ as mentioned throughout this piece, this is a perfect example of AI as an advocate for HR. Though just 1.2% of members on health care plans are classified as ‘high-cost claimants,’ they “make up a third of employer spending.” So not only is this a people issue, but a huge financial one as well.
Seeing this, Aon conducted a case study looked at recurring high-cost claimants and their future costs at said client's company. They found with ML that half of the high-risk group was ‘not identified by their current care-management plan’ that caused low employee engagement. A huge risk factor that could have been missed had AI not intervened. With these insights, Aon worked with their client to engage high-risk members, leading to at least $2,000 saved per member.
Here at Worksense AI, we carried out a similar study partnering with a Consulting firm that had high performers but who felt severely disengaged and considered leaving the company. Implementing sentiment analysis, Worksense was able to implement a plan based on information gleaned from public communication channels to better engage these employees and eventually avoid regrettable attrition. The result was increased efficiency and about over $1.2 million saved.
Not too bad for AI.
The Bottom Line- er, scratch that - Bridging The Great Divide
The bottom line matters, a ton. But we’ll always be stuck at the top like an inept Tetris player, if we, HR professionals, avoid taking the time to reevaluate how we can better dispel the perception employees have of us. We, the outsiders of HR, understand the role you all have as one that is very delicate and immensely hard. You will make decisions you feel are right, and are mostly objectively correct, and still fall short and under the ire of those who feel wronged.
But with the strategies above, we can maybe make a dent in changing this perception.
If you’re serious about doing so, Worksense AI is up to the challenge. Let’s go together on this journey.