In colleges and universities, HR houses the professionals with the strategic and practical expertise to best manage the higher ed workforce. It makes perfect sense, then, that the head of HR seeks a place at the table in the senior leadership team where they can be the link between strategic goals and the people who achieve them.
As an HR professional with 32 years of higher ed experience, and 15 of those years in progressive leadership roles, I find myself thinking about why we sometimes strive for a seat at the leadership table. Does striving for a seat at the table come at the expense of building a uniquely effective HR team that doesn’t rely on that leadership seat?
As HR leaders, we navigate complex people situations, we network and invest in leadership relationships, and we even help strategic leaders find housing and childcare, all for a chance to be seen and heard for what we offer to the leadership of our organizations. Are there other ways to be as effective?
HR’s effectiveness comes from turning workforce and organizational decisions into measurable value.
Yes, having HR report directly to senior leadership is one way to achieve strategic influence, but it’s not the only — and often not the primary — way that HR truly becomes effective. HR’s effectiveness comes from turning workforce and organizational decisions into measurable value. We deliver the hires, skills, structure and leadership needed to realize the organization’s strategic priorities.
Let’s review three ways HR plays a critical role in turning workforce and organizational decisions into measurable value regardless of where leaders sit in the reporting structure.
Embedded HR
The term “embedded HR” is generally thought of as the placement of an HR professional directly into a specific unit or department. HR professionals placed in a unit are likely to be included in the decision-making within that unit. HR can also be “embedded” when it is integrated into the day-to-day work and decision-making of the larger organization, whether placed directly in a unit or not. Here are some examples of how an HR professional with full organizational purview is positioned to truly support their institution’s strategic priorities.
Finance and budget. Integrating HR into the budget process actively links strategic priorities to the people who achieve them. Financial decisions are direct opportunities to align talent (people, skills and ways of working) to the work that creates the most business value.
In the budget processes I have observed, financial leaders from both central and divisional cost centers strive to align scarce resources to strategic priorities. Just like my personal budget, expenses inevitably outpace the available funds, leading to hard decisions about where to reduce expenses. Since the workforce is often the largest expense, these decisions frequently lead to position eliminations, reductions in force, or other employment actions. Finance leadership needs support to accomplish organizational redesign and restructuring through updated job descriptions, work equity reviews, new ways of working and due diligence to avoid risk — all things that HR is uniquely equipped to do well.
Talent strategy. Embedding HR in the expense review process ensures organizational decisions are turned into measurable value. For example, the director of talent management partners with the central budget office to assess the talent strategies emerging from expense projections. Together, they identify where one area of the institution is reducing full-time equivalents (FTE) performing a certain type of work and another area is investing in new FTE performing that same work. HR connects those dots and supports the reallocation of resources, inclusive of skill assessments and training plans, to address any skill gaps. HR supports success for all involved.
Critical hires and search firms. Embedding HR in the procurement process for search firms ensures that a talent acquisition professional is supporting excellence in critical hires. The HR talent acquisition leader partners with central procurement to develop a standardized master services agreement (MSA) framework to be used for search firm contracts. HR provides general oversight, including expertise in applicant data collection requirements and guidance on conducting background checks consistent with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and internal policies. HR’s involvement improves the institution’s compliance with federal regulations and the candidate experience while also raising HR’s awareness of search firm engagements in a decentralized hiring landscape.
Influencing decision-making behaviors relies on consistency and integrity in a world where exceptions are the rule.
Guiding Behavior
Overall, HR guides behavior through two channels: the formal mechanisms (policies, pay structures, job descriptions, training) and informal mechanisms (the way things actually happen, including what workplace behaviors are tolerated). The formal mechanisms are often the easier part of behavior guiding. The informal is much harder. Influencing decision-making behaviors relies on consistency and integrity in a world where exceptions are the rule.
Below, I offer some examples of how HR’s effectiveness in guiding behaviors is critical to turning workforce and organizational decisions into measurable value.
Compensation. When HR has a robust and effective compensation framework, they can lead disciplined compensation equity reviews and correct structural pay gaps. The compensation framework provides a basis for equitable decision support. Workforce pay analysis provides clarity about what is actually happening with employee pay. When HR applies consistent methodologies and pay practices uniformly, they directly influence supervisor and leadership behaviors regarding employee pay. Decisions and behaviors about employee pay have a significant impact on the organization. Poorly stewarded employee pay decisions lead to employee dissatisfaction, voluntary departures of top talent, and heightened legal and compliance risk.
Conflict. When HR intervenes early and skillfully in team or supervisory conflict, minor interpersonal friction is resolved before it affects productivity, managers develop stronger facilitation skills through guided experience, team performance stabilizes more quickly, voluntary turnover decreases, legal and investigation costs are avoided, and the organization retains institutional knowledge and continuity that would otherwise be lost to preventable attrition.
Look again at your HR policies, incentives and rewards, pay structures, performance expectations, career paths, leadership selection and succession, and workforce planning and skills development. What behaviors do your policies and programs incentivize at your organization? How do your HR professionals come alongside managers and supervisors in applying those formal mechanisms to workforce behaviors?
Coalition-Building
Coalition-building in HR refers to the deliberate practice of cultivating relationships, shared interests, and mutual commitments across departments, divisions and leadership levels. I think about this as building a pulley system to roll the rock up the hill rather than relying on Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned by Zeus to an eternity of torment pushing a massive boulder up a steep hill, only for it to roll back down just before reaching the top, forcing him to repeat the futile, endless labor forever. If you have worked in higher ed HR for some time, this likely sounds like a familiar experience. But it doesn’t have to be!
Here are some examples where applying a smaller amount of effort over a greater distance (like a pulley) builds coalitions and moves the boulders of workforce and organizational decisions toward measurable value.
Supervisor training and development. Management foundations training creates a coalition of good managers. Of course, we all know that making managers better produces a multiplier effect: better selection, better development, better retention and better performance across the entire workforce.
Communities of practice. Coordinated HR communities of practice result in a coalition of expertise and peer support. These communities of practice, whether they be HR business partners or recruiters, produce value through reduced duplication of effort across business units, faster identification of emerging workforce trends, and the compounding effect of collective expertise applied consistently at scale across the organization.
Work That Matters
Yes, having HR report directly to senior leadership is one way to achieve strategic influence, but I think there are more effective ways for HR to achieve those results. Try embedding HR in institutional processes, setting policies and then guiding behavior, and building coalitions. You may just find that you will love the work of HR the way I do. Imagine a future where you consistently hear strategic leadership say, “We make better decisions and execute better because HR is involved.” I personally think that is more satisfying than being at the table.
When we focus on our impact, we remember this simple truth: the work we do matters and people matter more.
About the author: Cheryl Guerin is the associate vice president of human resources at Dartmouth College.
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