Surveys show HR “don’t get no respect” from most line managers. Here are some of the capabilities we can show to earn it.
A recent Daily Advisor article talked about how little respect British line managers have for their colleagues in HR. A survey of nearly a thousand managers by Personnel Today magazine showed that barely 20 percent showed any deference to HR, or thought it at all effective.
This “Rodney Dangerfield” syndrome concerning HR has been written about countless times, both by us and by others in this country as well as abroad. BLR editors finally decided to sit down and brainstorm what capabilities HR has to show to other managers to be taken as seriously as the caretakers of any business’s most valuable asset, its people, should be.
Here is what we feel line managers are looking for from their HR counterparts:
–Freedom from Legal Hassles. Today’s employment landscape is a legal minefield. Employment law regulates both what managers can do and what they can say. Line managers want to know exactly what they can and can’t do, and know it in plain-English.
What’s more, they want the complete legal picture, federal and state. No line manager wants to comply with all federal regs only to be tripped up by goings on in Albany, Austin, Springfield, or Sacramento.
–Concern for the Bottom Line. HR people are thought of as protective of employee rights, sometimes at the cost of profitability. That doesn’t have to be so. Decades of HR experience have produced a litany of “best practices” that harmonize worker rights and profitability. All an HR person needs to impress senior management is to know about these techniques and to suggest them.
–Current Knowledge. No senior manager wants to hear about an important new employee law development by reading about it first in Business Week. Managers feel that their HR professionals have the responsibility to track developments that might impact the business on a daily basis and update management as soon as something significant occurs.
–Specific Answers. When a senior or line manager has a question with HR implications, he or she is not looking for a long delay for research before receiving an answer. The faster an HR person can provide a concise and accurate response, the more respect will be earned.
A Tool to Do it All
We also considered whether we offered any BLR product that hit every one of these bases, and the answer was a resounding “yes.” That’s why we’re delighted to again recommend our subscription website, HR.BLR.com. For the cost equivalent of a cup of coffee a day, the site offers: 1) Plain-English explanations of all relevant employment law, federal and state; 2) Hundreds of best practices white papers, plus other tools such as prewritten job descriptions, training meetings, forms and checklists; 3) Daily news reports of the entire HR field; and 4) A unique “Ask the Experts” research service that supplies personal answers to your emailed specific questions within one business day. “It’s everything you need to show ’em what you can really do,” said one editor.
If you’d like to try HR.BLR.com at absolutely no cost and with absolutely no obligation to continue for a full 14 days, and to receive a free special report for doing so, click below.
For more information or to start your trial to HR.BLR.com, and receive a free special report on the most asked FLSA overtime questions, click here.