A Continuous HR Process - An Argument for Effective HR

Does your company have a continuous or a seamless HR practice?

Ok now you might want to know what really is a continuous or a seamless HR practice?

Well, simply put, a Continuous/Seamless HR practice is a well structured, well paced involvement of a company's HR department/team into the company's tactical (Read: Day-to-Day) and strategic (Read: Long Term) functioning.

It's a concept that is unfortunately quite lost on the upper management/leadership teams of many organizations around the globe. It is especially prevalent amongst the small to mid-sized organizations for whom the HR Team is essentially not much more than an extension of the staffing and general administration function. This is all the more accentuated in companies that belong to the manufacturing/technical industry where in a lot of cases HR is put on a 'need-to-know' basis. That is, HR's involvement is strictly relegated to certain areas and work situations, in effect sidelining the HR team to a great extent and hence immediately giving away or compromising upon potentially atleast on 20% of organizational effectiveness.

There are also instances I have come across where even though the company has invested heavily in building up a great HR team, it has consistently failed to capitalize on harvesting and utilizing the capabilities of the team in bringing about the requisite organizational changes, creating and streamlining work processes and initiating necessary training and development activities which from an essential part of the 'Learning Curve' for each individual employee and forms an integral part of the employee retention process (apart from the company's Performance Management System and it's rewards and incentives policy).

This phenomena of under utilizing of HR exists inspite of recognition of the fact that the 'Human Resource' is an organization's greatest and the most valuable resource. This under utilization (and in some cases sheer miss-utilization) occurs basically because of any or all of the following broad reasons:

1. Improper understanding of the HR process and its strategic significance by the top management which more often than not percolates down to the middle management as well.


2. Autocratic management culture where actual control even for day-today functioning rests with a few individuals. This phenomena is more common amongst family run/controlled businesses.


3. Company management culture that has essentially evolved from a factory management mindset. This is especially the case with a lot of small to mid-sized Asian firms where HR was traditionally a 'welfare' function.


4. Selection of senior HR personnel who are essentially from an 'administrative' background rather than from a core strategic HR background.


5. A specific function oriented company where the focus is primarily on one or two types of very specific functional areas and the all other functions come to be treated like minor support functions. (Ex: a Marketing Services company or a Financial Research Firm


6. Simply hiring the wrong people for the wrong job - inexperienced or ill equipped HR personnel ( lower and upper level) who simply cannot help make HR a seamless process for the organization.
   

A continuous HR process essentially means that the HR is involved intrinsically not only in administrative or specific day-today activities like staffing, on-boarding, payroll, compensation and benefits but also employee engagement activities, strategically focused training and development activities, employee career planning/counselling and coaching activities, the short and long term manpower planning process, tactical and strategic policy decision making and most importantly be an integral part of the company's medium to long term goal setting process.

Hence, it is all about a sustained and well integrated involvement in both the day-to-day functioning of the company and it's planning for the future so that the company's most important resource is not only effective on a daily basis but is also ready to grow with the company and face bigger and greater challenges in the future. It makes both for a happy employee and a stronger organization.

A lack of continuous HR process or climate leads to HR becoming stagnant over a period of time which in turn breeds a poor work atmosphere mostly due to poor or reduced stress coping abilities amongst the organization's employees along with over a period of time, the development of an un-patriotic, detached attitude. The negative effect this can have on productivity and the company's power to attract top grade talent cannot be overstated.

Now the obvious question is how to create a seamless/continuous HR process in an organization?

Keep an eye out for another post articulating the same.