PD Spotlight: HR Foundations: reshaping true north

For some of us, over the past few months, it may have felt like we’ve gone back to square one with our HR expertise and advice-giving. And that doesn’t include paying people correctly and on time, figuring out what hours they worked and checking in on their welfare. Denise Hartley-Wilkins, HRNZ National President, HR consultant and co-facilitator of the HRNZ HR Foundations and HR 101 programmes, takes a closer look at why getting the basics in place is often the most powerful thing you can do.

Whoa! Where is the year going? What day of the week is it? Feeling confused and discombobulated? Well, that is just how many HR professionals felt, and still feel, as they turned on a dime to support their organisations with the many COVID-19 decisions that affected their people.

Within a week of New Zealand going to Alert Level 4, I was co-delivering the HR Foundations programme virtually. This was the first-ever HRNZ virtual programme. While working with the trailblazer participants on that programme, as they juggled their professional development with emails, texts and bouncing children on their knee, common themes emerged:

• HR has to navigate challenges it has never encountered before

• health, safety and wellness of staff is of paramount importance

• managing remote workers brings many challenges

• adapting employee remuneration and hours of work is becoming the norm.

The HR Foundations three-day programme is designed for HR practitioners who may be early on in their careers or who want to extend their knowledge of leading-edge HR practice. We cover all the major HR functions, from resourcing to performance management, employment relations to remuneration and reward. Often, we are keen to do the ‘snazzy’ side of HR, for example, implementing new employer branding to our recruitment strategy or introducing a new app for employee wellbeing. But we need to have the basics in place first, particularly in times of crisis.

Now, more than ever, our managers are seeing the value of HR.

It was interesting to see what emerged from our HR Foundations participants during our time together. The main focus was critical actions and new initiatives that were in place within a week, such as flexible working, and dealing with the challenges of managing people working from home. Having to solve problems within a tight timeframe showed collaboration at its best: HR, IT and Operations working together with one goal. How do we make this work? Homeworking policy in place? Nope, but no worries, we’ll make it up as we go along using knowledge gained on the course. Health, safety and wellbeing for our remote and essential workers: push that to the top of the list.

When I look at this time from a big-picture perspective, I notice two things. HR professionals are juggling the transactional day-to-day stuff and also leaning in big time to the priority crisis response stuff. This is transformational HR. BIG shout out to all those HR professionals, many of whom are developing HR folk with limited experience to draw on. It’s sort of like building the plane and setting the flight map as it’s flying!

What has come front and centre during this time is the central role of HR in enabling their organisations to quickly shift to a virtual world. Having the foundations in place makes it easy to spring-board onto the next challenge coming our way.

Now, more than ever, our managers are seeing the value of HR. HRNZ offers a programme specifically for line managers or those for whom HR is only one significant part of their role. You have probably heard of ‘Accounting for non-accountants’ – well, this is HR for non-HR people. We get rid of the jargon and provide managers with the resources, knowledge and understanding to work with everyday peoplemanagement situations. For example, how do I make someone redundant? How do I manage lateness or poor performance? Can I recruit someone who doesn’t have a work permit?

It’s sometimes tough and messy work. But it’s also rewarding and inspiring supporting our organisations and New Zealand during this time. HR value at its best! Over the three days of the virtual HR Foundations programme we were able to focus discussions around these themes for participants, so they could go away and transfer their learning into their remote workplaces. We plan to continue those discussions. In the upcoming HR Foundations programme, we’ll explore how we’ll weave in lessons from this time, as well as including virtual and face-to-face options. We look forward to welcoming you into the HR Foundations room.

Denise Hartley-Wilkins, CFHRNZ, is the National President of HRNZ. In her day job, she is Director of Shine People Consulting, based in Nelson, and currently works (virtually) across New Zealand.

Denise is a facilitator for HRNZ PD courses, virtual courses and webinars.