The HR Hub

Why is it so hard to find someone to talk about HR strategy? It's been something I've been trying to do for a long time now... and apparently it's complicated! Len Nanjad, however, was up to the task! He thinks deeply about HR strategy including how to deliver an HR strategy that balances the complexity of people with business strategy. He is also the guest on one of my most popular episodes! He says developing our strategy is similar to other parts of the business: First understand the business strategy. He gives us some guidance about how to think the product-market fit of HR - see the video below. We talk about how to consider all the things that employees think we should be doing and sometimes we want to do. We're not doing HR to do HR well. Not usually anyhow. If you read this far, I'm also looking for someone who's willing to teach HR about communications. It's not exactly our thing if we're in larger companies. But in smaller companies we are all they've got. If you know of someone willing to have this convo with me, let me know!

In HR we have to navigate the boundaries between us and leadership. We want to provide good service, but we can't enable leaders to avoid their responsibilities. This week's guest was Pam Schmidt. Pam, a leadership and organization development consultant, shared her experiences and insights on a common challenge in HR and offered some practical advice (and a little bit of spine!) Pam discussed: 2️⃣ Two ways leaders may approach HR that may be misguided: role clarity and team function. 🚩Why she sees these as 'red flags' and what could be going wrong underneath. 🫱 Her approach to supporting leaders 🤔 Why she thinks HR sometimes steps in anyhow. Ultimately it works best if leaders take responsibility for their team's dynamics. By tuning into this episode, you will learn about: 🔹The importance of leaders in handling challenging situations and setting clear expectations. 🔹The role of HR professionals in supporting leaders while maintaining their own boundaries. 🔹The significance of role clarity and team function in an organization. 🔹How to approach conflict and feedback in a leadership role. Find Pam on LinkedIn. Find Andrea at thehrhub.ca

In the world of HR, conflict resolution is an everyday thing. Employees frequently seek us out to help them resolve their conflict. Incorporating mediation for HR can help. Mediation skills are made of skills we already have. The thing that gets in our way is usually fear or discomfort around conflict. So you need to practice. Unfortunately. I actually went looking for someone to talk to about alternative dispute resolution. Mediation is one element but I'll have to cover other aspects of ADR later. However I found Kate Otting in the process. She is CEO of Interaction Management Associates and has led mediation groups all over. Currently she is the Director of Mediation for the City of Phoenix. She says: 😆Mediation may one of the few fields where mediocrity is the goal. See the video. ♾️The more we engage with conflict (notice I didn't say 'in'), the more adept we become at managing it. 💸Conflict is expensive x 10. I can only imagine how much time I've spent on conflict nevermind the entire econonmy. ⁉️ When is the last time an employee came in your office to vent? Here are some links Kate has offered: IMA courses: imamediation.com/courses - save 30% on any course or bundle with promo code HRHUBFree downloadable tools:Listening skills checklist: https://bit.ly/listentoolChecklist for becoming a mediator: https://bit.ly/newmediatorchecklistOpen-ended questions workbook: https://bit.ly/open-ended-qHow to Respectfully Disagree Like a Pro - workbook: https://bit.ly/IMAworkbook Find me at thehrhub.ca

Curious about how AI is changing the game for HR? Or maybe you've been waiting for the hype to die down and the real story to come out. This discussion is super informative either way! I found a fantastic guest to talk to about AI for HR! Megan Marie Butler is doing her PhD on the topic and, since she is not affiliated with any software company, we get a fairly unfiltered point of view! And Megan is pretty funny as speaks her mind on the potential and perils of AI. Like: ☁️ The AI sky might fall on HR! ☀️ Or it might not, but we have to be cautious. If a vendor says they can't tell you what's going on underneath: beware. 😫 We will, at least partly, learn the hard way. ‼ There are surprising and exciting use cases for it beyond ChatGPT. 🤔AI is hard to define and ChatGPT is just one form. Albeit a very exciting form. This was an outstanding episode if I do say so myself. If you haven't delved into it yet, try this episode. Megan speaks plainly and informatively. Find Megan on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmariebutler/ or at bnmmb@leeds.ac.uk Find Andrea for consulting in Western Canada at thehrhub.ca

Business strategy is not the strategic plan. And the business strategy has considerable implications for HR strategy. In this episode with Len Nanjad, we talk about the impact of business strategy on HR. Len is a guy who thinks deeply about HR, is the guest in one of my most popular videos, and doesn't accept the easy explanations that many of us have come to accept as truth. Some of his insights about business strategy: 4️⃣ Business strategy has 4 pieces. ＝ HR strategy could also focus on the same 4 pieces. We need to think about them in context of HR and the business. 😫 We will often help the stressed out leader in the most simple way possible rather than think about the strategy and if our effort would be better spent in other ways. ↻ We often hold individuals accountable for poor performance. But it is quite possibly the system not them. Find Len on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennanjad/ or https://www.mnp.ca/en/personnel/len-n... Find me (Andrea) at www.thehrhub.ca. I'm an HR consultant and provide a wide range of consulting support in Western Canada. Mostly.

People do dumb, mean, or even evil things at work and so we have to do investigations in HR. And the following is pretty common: "He did this terrible thing to me!" 😭 "I did no such thing. She's lying!" 😡 It's 'he said she said'. Who do you believe???? While it would be tempting to stop there, that's the wrong thing to do. You need to do a CREDIBILITY ASSESSMENT. Credibility assessments were the subject of my conversation with Bob Stenhouse in response to a question from someone who watched an earlier video. Bob leads Veritas Solutions and they do many investigations every year. Bob is an interesting guy (he used to be an undercover officer) and is an expert in doing credibility assessments. He talks about: 😩DARVO - Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim Offender (see the video below) 🤷🏻‍♀️When someone's truth is not the actual truth. 👀Body language. This is not an effective way of judging credibility. 🗣️Honesty and reliability. These are key pieces of credibility. This was very fascinating stuff and increases the integrity of how we do our work in HR. Find Bob at Veritas Solutions veritassolutions.net or follow him on LinkedIn because he writes great posts! Find Andrea for generalist HR consulting in Western Canada at thehrhub.ca

It's a bit shocking how few workplaces have mentoring programs when we all know how powerful it is for ourselves personally. Look at the learning and development model that says 70% of learning is on the job, 20% is through relationships and 10% is in training. We work pretty hard at on the job opportunities and formal training... what happened the relationship piece??? Why not formalize mentoring? You CAN do it well. This is the expertise of my lovely guest this week Laura Lundsford. She's written a book on the topic (which is how I found her) and was super insightful. ❌We assume chemistry is required and that cannot be formalized. With thoughtful program development, those assumptions are wrong. ❓Start with a clear 'why'. See the video below. 🤔The mentors role is probably more about listening and asking questions. That sounds a little like coaching, but it isn't because the mentor has a particular expertise they will also have the opportunity to share. # If you want your program to persist, collect data to make your case later. 🛑 There are ethical considerations. Dr. Lunsford's Book: The Mentor's Guide: Five Steps to Build a Successful Mentor Program I (Andrea) am available for HR consulting in Western Canada. Email me at andrea@thehrhub.ca

Success at work isn't solely determined by your skills or qualifications. Your mindset also plays a pivotal role in shaping your professional journey and achieving your career goals. Mindset has quite a few facets: growth mindset and attitude are a couple. It has an enormous impact on your resilience and mental health. It's the mental health connection that I focused on a bit more in this episode with Laura Terrell. Laura is a coach and was a former special advisor to the US President. She's also a lawyer. I figure she probably knows a thing or two about mindset. Like: 🤔 You can work on your mindset. It's not a static thing. And it's starts with being intentional about it. 😥 When something upsetting has happened... give yourself the space to be upset. Then: how to I move forward from here so this doesn't define your job? 🤬 When something bad happens, sometimes we feel justified in our anger and vent enthusiastically to friends... it may not be that helpful. What you should do is go for a walk or do something you like. THEN consider an appropriate reaction. A break may create objectivity. 😨 We self-limit too often. We don't ask questions because we fear the answer. Or we tell ourselves "I don't have all the qualifications." Find Laura at lauraterrell.com Find me (Andrea) at thehrhub.ca for HR support in Western Canada

There's a sexual harassment complaint and it ends up front page news. It's our worst nightmare, but it's absolutely avoidable by doing the right thing. By *managing risk*. We rarely think of HR situations in risk management terms i.e. probability and consequence, but that's the expertise of this week's guest. Bob Stenhouse of Veritas Solutions is a former undercover police officer who understands the consequences intimately. He's taken his investigative and risk management skill into HR. His insight is unique! 🤔While PR may be a part of an organization's risk mitigation that is not HR's role. Our role is to mitigate the probability and consequences. 🔋 That means speaking truth to power. Which can get someone fired. 🎯One way of taking the 'heat' out is to focus on risk rather than moralizing. 📈 You can predict where the HR risks are by following cultural trends. Find Bob at Veritas Solutions veritassolutions.net or follow him on LinkedIn. He writes great posts! Find Andrea for generalist HR consulting in Western Canada at thehrhub.ca

Instead of telling you how to do DEI better, this week's guest tells us how SHE learned to do DEI better and ended up adding the B (belonging)! I had a great conversation with Carla Yudhishthu . Carla is humble and sincere in the DEIB journey she has been on as the Chief People Officer with Mineral. While she tells her (their) story, she also share some great ideas! Like: 📈We may not see the evidence in the data that change is still necessary because often only the negative shows up. But we must persist! See the video below. 🤔We need to anchor ourselves in the 'why' of what we are doing. Otherwise we are likely to spin our wheels. ‼ Her purpose became 'belonging', but it took a while to realize it. 💡 Conversations for Understanding was one of the ideas that I loved most from this! Find Carla through LinkedIn or her organization, Mineral: trustmineral.com Find me for consulting in Western Canada at thehrhub.ca