HR: stop hiding your light under a bushel!
It’s not enough to do great work and hope for recognition; we need to constantly promote how HR helps our organisation win
Many people's view of the world is that if you do a good job it will be recognised, but we can't assume that people above and around you will notice and value you. Your HR work and its commercial value needs to be visible, and if you are the People lead, you need to be the most visible.
If promoting your accomplishments make you uncomfortable (this appears to be particularly true of women, says Gill Whitty-Collins*) identify the benefits of doing this. If you and your team are more visible it will allow you to make a greater impact, have greater recognition and rewards, and enable you to shape the People & Talent agenda in your organisation.
Before thinking of where you want to get to, what is the current view of HR in your organisation?
Some questions to ask yourself:
· Do you know what you and your team are known for and what you stand for?
· Do you know what people say about you and your team when you're not in the room?
· Do you know what influence you and your team have on the organisation?
Ask your team and key people in the organisation what they think. Once you clarify the answers you can focus on how specifically to increase your visibility within the organisation with clear messages.
What can you do to increase the visibility of you and your HR team?
Let's start with an easy one. Demonstrate your expertise and intentionally involve HR in the business - share ideas, ask questions, run in-house lunch and learns, blog posts.
Share your strengths - think about where you and your team could add value, mention your expertise, talk about your team successes and learning.
Communicate the goals of your team - partner with others, ask ‘what can I do to solve your issues?’, & ask to be at a range of commercial and client-facing meetings to understand more about some of the organisation’s challenges.
Build relationships and network - seek sponsors/advocates, increase your access to different areas of the business, whether it's with key clients or functions. Recognise how your expertise can help shape the conversation and improve business decision making and performance.
Show off your team’s work - regular briefings about what you and your team are doing. Think about how you communicate – does your audience respond best to data, story, or headlines? People who are good at promoting their work often talk about solutions and what it enabled the recipients to achieve e.g. how they avoided a problem by the actions that they took, and the extra revenue / cost saving / positive impact to employer brand it created.
When you are engaging in promoting your work, be shrewd and channel your narrative and successes to people that matter, in the strategic and commercial language that has meaning to them. Be explicit and keep repeating the message. HR is not often known for self-promotion, but it would be to your advantage if everyone knew what you do, but more importantly, the results that you deliver, and how it enables your organisation to win.
*Why Men Win At Work by Gill Whitty-Collins
Helen Quinlivan is CEO Whispering’s chief blogger and researcher. She has worked for over 30 years in global corporate HR and L&D.
CEO Whispering www.ceowhispering.co.uk enables new, inexperienced, and aspiring HR Directors to achieve the results you desire, through increased influence, credibility, and impact.
CEO Whispering’s Influence & Impact programme has been designed specifically to address these problems, enabling you to effectively articulate & win support for your agenda with your CEO and Executive Team.
You can download a brochure by clicking here: alternatively see what value our participants gained from the programme by clicking here to watch this short testimonial video