Enabling. Enabling the organisation to achieve its objectives by giving it the tools it needs in terms of advice, development, processes, structures, systems.
Influencing those who make decisions into making the right ones, best for the business, which often means convincing people of long-term benefits of a decision. Being prepared to be accountable for those proposals and for the results of those decisions if influence has been had on them.
IME HR don?t make policy. Not big decisions anyway. They influence policy, if they are any good and have any credibility, and they convince decision makers to make policy decisions, including proposing policy. Better if a policy decision is made by senior management, as influenced by HR, rather than imposed, (or perceived to be imposed) by HR - much easier to get buy-in. Decisions without buy-in from the right people are just a headache for everyone. If you?re at a stage where you are sufficiently credible and influential that your input changes the way an organisation is run without any actual defined power or authority, that?s feels good to me, and it?s where I like to be. You can be accountable for a lack of credibility and should be. None of this moaning 'why don't managers do what I say and listen to me, it's so terrible'. Take responsibility for that and fix it yourself.
Advising ? good quality advice which isn?t just ?well the law says x?, but is ?Well, what do you want to achieve? Ok lets talk about how we can achieve that for you. Or, well is that really the best option, here are the problems with it, how about considering x?? Getting the results the business wants because of the advice you give, rather than in spite of the obstacles you put in the way.
Understanding what the business is about. Not setting yourself apart, but being a part of it. Knowing what people are doing and facing everyday. Spending time out of HR, not going from HR dept to meeting rooms and back again.
Administration. Not sexy, we?re all supposed to be all strategic and business partner-y. But none of the things we want to achieve can be done without credibility, and the fastest way to undermine credibility of the function is to have offer letters sent out late or wrong, records inaccurate or missing, over-laborious procedures that don?t achieve much, slow response to basic enquiries, all that stuff. Easier to make sure house is in order and can?t be faulted rather than giving everyone first excuse to think HR is rubbish. Soon as anyone encounters a tiresome HR admin problem, their impression of HR is a ?bit rubbish?, meaning they won?t come for advice until last possible minute and will not value that advice when they do. Especially crucial during recruitment and induction ? DH?s impression of HR at his new job is already tainted because of incompetence with his offer letter. What a shame. He now thinks they?re all a bit rubbish and probably won?t be able to offer him any meaningful, helpful advice.
If it?s always smooth, helpful and timely, senior HR professionals spend less time apologising, sorting out problems and trying to re-establish credibility, their own and the function?s, and can concentrate on adding value and influencing the people who matter. Taking responsibility and being prepared to be held more accountable for those boring admin-y things is something lots of HR people want to avoid. But it?s in our interest to do so imo.
Be a help not a hindrance. Processes should ease the way for managers, or at least disrupt and hinder them as little as possible. Apart from anything else, because otherwise managers won?t follow them and neither will anyone else. Be accountable for the success and compliance rate of processes rather than blaming managers for not following them. Why aren't they following them and what can you do to make sure they do?
Getting good value and good service from providers. Taking the time to look at those things can ime result in huge ?wins?, have saved many thousands in the past by doing that when everyone else was just chugging along with historical arrangements and an ?Ain?t broke don?t fix it? attitude.
Managerial skills ? making sure managers have the skills they need to do the job as well as we want them to. Making sure they understand and see how it makes a difference.
Delivery on strategic objectives and being able to measure and demonstrate that. For example is your talent management strategy seen as just a load of HR guff, or can you demonstrate that since implementing it the organisation has successfully identified, retained, developed talent to good effect? Same with other strategic objectives. Lots of HR people imo want to get these things in place, all very lovely, but are less keen to measure them. Again, all impacts on credibility of the function, and with credibility established, influence is increased and compliance is easier achieved.
Providing accurate, relevant and useful management information, together with a proposal about how to address something in that information if there are negatives/concerns. So not just ?ooh, look how marvellous, we have turnover figures that have increased in x,y,z department', but instead saying, ?turnover figures have increased in x,y,z department, we are proposing x to find out why and will then propose a solution to address.?
That?s a bit of a waffle, just dumping some thoughts down really.