Dear Liz,
I am proud of the company I built but I have never felt all that comfortable in the 'people' department. The first few employees in our company were high school friends of mine and most of them are still here. Now we have 280 employees.
I had a part-time HR person, Sylvia, who took care of payroll and benefits for our first few years. As we grew bigger I thought about hiring a full-time HR person but things were going pretty smoothly and I had a lot of other priorities so I didn't do it. We have used an HR consultant, Barry, several times for projects and he has helped us a lot.
Earlier this year I got some feedback from my management team and one of our Board members that the company is big enough to keep a full-time HR Manager or Director busy. Ironically the woman I hired, "Maggie," required that her title be VP of Culture, and I agreed with that because I didn't think it made any difference one way or the other.
Her salary was in line with what I was willing to pay so we made a deal.
She came with great credentials. She lasted six months. Now I am undoing the damage Maggie did to our company.
I got snowed by Maggie's argument that our company needed all new HR systems, policies and procedures. She came in here six months ago and basically got everybody upset right away by writing new policies and clamping down on our formerly pretty casual culture, starting with our dress code.
You may wonder why I went along with Maggie's ideas. I thought that she knew more about the field of HR than I did and of course I wanted to support a new member of my leadership team.
I trust our employees very much. A lot of them have been here for years. When a plant foreman, Peter, came to see me to say that he was about ready to quit over his disagreements with Maggie, I finally got the message. I called a meeting and our management team, including Maggie and me, aired the topic of our culture and our HR systems.
It was a difficult meeting but at the end of it Maggie said "I don't think your company is ready to step up to the next level" and she gave notice. That was fantastic because I didn't have to fire her.
Now employees are lining up to tell me and the other managers how much they hate the new "culture" that Maggie installed. We are undoing the damage bit by bit. I would like to say that I've learned a powerful lesson except I have no idea what the lesson is.
I am completely gun-shy about hiring a new HR leader, although we have a lot of hiring to do and I'm sure we could make good use of a more people-friendly HR manager. What do you recommend?
Thanks,
Mark
Dear Mark,
Many entrepreneurs and other leaders have been bitten by the same snake that got you. They are more removed from the HR function than from other functions, and so they don't trust their sturdy instincts. They think that the leadership of HR requires different muscles than the ones that the heads of other functions bring to the job. It's false!
An HR leader looks out for the culture of the company, not by clamping down and destroying the trust you've built up but by celebrating it and spreading the goodwill around. There are HR laws and regulations that must be complied with of course, but in a healthy culture you run very little risk of breaking any employment laws.
Human Workplaces play very far in front of the net, you might say. They don't focus on merely complying with the minimum requirements of employment laws. You wouldn't treat your customers only as well as the law requires, would you? You treat your customers like gold!
The right HR leader will help you and your leaders remember and give weight to the human aspect of every business decision, from a re-organization to a change in the health plan.
When you as a busy CEO or any of your leaders forgets the human perspective, your HR leader will bring that topic back to the forefront. Your CFO looks out for the long-term and short-term financial health of your business. You can't be thinking about the financial impact of every decision at every moment, so your CFO does that for you.
Your HR leader does the same thing, except that his or her priority is the trust level in the organization rather than dollars and cents. Ironically, your HR leader should be the Minister of Culture in your company, but merely sticking a VP of Culture title on a person like Maggie will not change his or her underlying worldview.
The next time you hire an HR chief, involve your managers and the staff members you trust to safeguard your friendly culture as your company grows. There is nothing more important in your business plan than that. It's great that you took Peter's feedback seriously and organized the meeting that led to Maggie's resignation.
I'm certain that you have already gained trust points with your team for engineering her departure, although you have more work to do as you restore the trust that Maggie's short and destructive reign weakened for your teammates.
This would be a great time to host a Town Hall Meeting. You can thank your team for keeping you posted on their observations and reactions to things going on at work, and let them know that you're looking for a new HR leader to replace Maggie. Ask them what they want in an HR chief.
Don't disparage Maggie of course, but open the door wide to any feedback your teammates might want to give you in the moment or later, in a more private way. More importantly, don't ever believe that somebody's HR credentials trump your own gut feelings about the people in your company. You wouldn't have gotten this far ignoring your gut in any other realm -- don't do it in the HR arena, either!
All the best,
Liz
