How to Have Positive Impact in Your HR Role
Problem: I Can’t Do My Job Without Influence
Hi Liz,
I’m the highest-ranking HR person in our company.
I have a Manager title. We have two Directors who head up functions (Purchasing and Facilities) but the rest of the function heads are VPs or Senior VPs.
It’s not just my title that’s the problem.
I got promoted from within HR where I was an HR Coordinator first (9 years) then a Recruiter and then Staffing Manager.
When they put me in charge of HR last year, they kept me at the Manager level.
I told my boss (VP Operations) that decision bothered me but she said, “Do a great job in this role and I’ll think about changing your title.”
She never said what “a great job” meant to her. I’ve asked her a million times.
My Suggestions Get Ignored
Liz, I have no influence. I get told what to do. My suggestions and ideas are mostly ignored. I try to avoid conflict but I end up arguing with my boss or department managers because everyone assumes they can steamroll right over me.
I believe in proactive rather than reactive HR. I believe in culture and communication but I don’t have the power or influence in this organization to move my ideas forward.
What should I do?
Thanks,
Alisa
Hi Alisa,
A lot of HR people (and non-HR people) can relate to your situation.
It’s not easy running HR in any organization, and it’s especially tough when your boss doesn’t support you as well as you would like them to.
Still, there’s a lot you can do to surmount this problem.
My suggestions here are intended to help you grow your muscles.
Getting stronger will help you whether you end up staying with your current employer or going somewhere else.
Which course of action is best (staying or leaving) remains to be seen but will become more obvious as you step further into your power.
Your Ten-Step Muscle-Growing Program
Here’s my muscle-growing program for you Alisa:
- Start with your journal
First, get a journal and start writing in it. Write about yourself a year from now. Look back at the year that started today. How did things change for you between this date in 2023 and the same date in 2024?
Write about those changes. What’s different in your job now? What have you brought about, shifted, evolved or upgraded in that year?
What’s different in you? How have your muscles grown? Are you more confident now? Is it easier to broach scary or sticky topics?
2. List Your HR Goals
Next, make a list of your goals. Do you want to change a policy, or several of them? Do you want to implement a new program or change an existing one? You mention that you want to have more influence.
What will that look like, specifically? Will you convince your leadership team to create a DEI plan, or try flexible work schedules?
Get very clear about what you want and how you’ll know when you’ve got it.
3. Develop an HR strategy for 2024
Start with the company’s topmost goals. If you don’t know them, ask your manager what the firm’s goals are. You need that information to create an HR strategy.
Talk to every department manager you can. Ask them what their department’s 2024 goals are. You’re learning about your business AND your own job.
4. Get input
When you check in with each department manager about their 2024 goals, ask them for their input on your HR strategy and goals as well. Ask, “How can I support you best in 2024?”
They might have suggestions for recruiting, onboarding, HR practices, pay policies or almost anything. Capture their ideas and thank them for partnering with you. Keep them posted on your overall plan as it evolves.
You need input from employees, too. Host a lunch & talk session on how HR can serve your employees in 2024. Visibility is a big part of influence.
Your visibility, credibility AND influence will all benefit when you create your HR platform and develop a vision for your HR practice!
5. Manage change – starting with your own manager
If you haven’t created an HR strategy before, your boss may be surprised by your interest in that activity now. Check in with her at every step. Change is often jarring.
If the HR Manager role has been different, for instance more administrative or transactional before and you’re interested in evolving and elevating the role and the function, get your VP’s buy-in on that.
If she’s not a fan, it’s time to think about whether this organization is still the right place for you.
6. Walk through your HR Strategy
When your strategy is ready and committed to paper, ask your boss for a sit-down meeting. Tell her that you’d like to walk through your 2024 HR strategy with her. Meet and talk.
Let her know your ideas and plans. Be realistic – Rome wasn’t built in a day. Be ready to say how each of your ideas will help the organization reach its goals in 2024.
If you see your role evolving, explain to your VP how you foresee that happening.
7. Lay out your strategic planning process
Make sure your manager understands that you collected ideas from the management team and incorporated them into your HR plan. Let your boss know that your strategy is not unilateral but rather a team effort.
8. Allow time for your ideas to settle in
Your boss may react to your plan immediately or take time to review it later. She may share it with her manager or other leaders. Her reaction matters. She is the person who can champion you and your vision for HR – or keep it from coming to life.
9. Dive in
Once you have buy-in on your plan (even if it’s different from your original proposal, as it is likely to be) dive in!
Celebrate small victories along the way and continue to keep department managers in the loop.
Make sure your HR plan includes regular, forthright and friendly communication with employees in every department and location.
Our job as HR people is to keep our teammates equipped to win on the field, and communication is a huge part of that.
10. Keep the mission in mind
Finally, stay aware of the big messages you want and intend to deliver – maybe about ongoing modernization/humanization of practices and your culture or maybe about specific employee, team or leadership issues.
Keep those hot topics front and center and when your fuel tank is full, bring them up in order of importance. Bring them up with the person or people who can bring about the change you want to see.
The best ways to grow your muscles are to:
- Speak your truth when the moment requires it
- Stay in integrity and
- Step out of your comfort zone as often as possible.
Here’s to you Alisa!
Best,
Liz
Have a question for Liz about your HR/leadership plan or how to gain influence?