This week we have an exciting new Hot Spot writer for Hot HR. Please welcome Tim Rawson, HR Manager for Travel Jigsaw, one of the world’s leading car rental brokers, serving over 1 million customers per year, via 40 websites in 20+ languages. Travel Jigsaw have 500 employees, all based in city centre Manchester.
A little bit about Tim - "I began my HR career by transitioning from management to HR in Selfridges in 2008. Here I started in recruitment before becoming a generalist. In 2010 I moved to worked for 2ergo, a world-leading mobile software company, as HR Executive, reporting to the board. I then joined Travel Jigsaw in December 2010 as a stand-alone HR Manager. I’m part CIPD qualified and am hopefully a good example of why you don’t need a degree to get a management job! My main interests in the world of HR are commercial HR solutions, reward and organisational design."
Can we stop trying to ‘define’ HR?
It's nearly midnight. I'm writing this sentence because the writer's worst enemy is the blank page. I’m to write a blog for HotHR. I’ve never done it before, so where to start?
Well, there are no end of blogs treating HR as if it were the subject of a PhD thesis. And there are loads of blogs trying to be 'cool', talking about rock music and funky office furniture, but for me, they don’t get close to tackling what I do in HR. One thing runs throughout most of these blogs (and this one too, if I’m honest). Introspection. HR talking about HR. What are we? What’s our value? How do we gain influence?
My view is that it’ll never get defined conclusively, but that’s the best reason to stop discussing it and just pick a goal, and to hell with the inward-looking stuff which can get in the way of delivery.
The best HR lesson I learned was in my first GCSE Business Studies class, before I'd even heard of HR. The teacher told us, “Rule number one. Businesses exist for one reason; to make money”. It’s crude. It doesn’t even begin to explain the complexities of everyday business, but it’s true.
Businesses aren’t here to provide us with the best products on the market, or to give us cheap deals, or to satisfy our need for services, or to wow us with their superior customer service ability. Why? Because if it’s not profitable, they don’t do it.
Apply the same principle to HR. I’m not here to reduce absence, to improve recruitment, to ensure policies are up to date, to ensure 100% completion on return-to-work interviews and appraisals. I’m not here to fix everyone’s problems.
No. They are not my goals, as such. As an HR professional, I have one job:
To ensure maximum profit from the team.
That’s it. How you deliver it is up to you and the company you work for. Do we do those things listed above too? Are they a vehicle to achieving that goal? Sometimes, but only when it’s in the business interest. Process, policy, and the dreaded ‘form-filling’ is only right if you can justify it to your MD in the elevator.
Unfortunately, we in HR too often lose sight of that. We too often define ourselves as the peace-makers, the go-betweens, the process guy, the policy lady. We're not the business-solution. It’s been said before, but we too often think we’re the only part of the organisation which doesn’t have to contribute to the bottom line.
So, my question is: is there a better way to measure HR-value than ‘profit per employee’? I’ve thought about it, but I can’t think of one.
Now, I know the above really applies most to the private sector, but that’s my background. I’d love to hear the views of others on this. And I promise: No more blogs on ‘the definition of HR’!
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