Mastering Consultation as an HR Practitioner: Making an Impact in Small Business: 9 - Softcover

Currence, Jennifer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586445022 ISBN 13: 9781586445027

Publisher: SHRM - Kogan Page, 2018

Synopsis

<p><b>HR professionals are uniquely positioned to lead transformation, but doing so requires a consultative mindset.<br> </b><br><b><i>Mastering Consultation as an HR Practitioner</i></b> equips HR professionals with tools and frameworks to advise leaders, define organizational needs, and implement lasting change. This practical guide offers best practices for data gathering, problem-solving and solution development, all grounded in a consultative approach. Featuring real-world case studies, worksheets and ready-to-use resources, it helps practitioners apply strategic thinking to everyday challenges and elevate their value within the organization.<br><br>Whether you're supporting a business unit or driving company-wide initiatives, this book shows how to build trust, influence outcomes and lead with impact.</p>

About this title

About the Author

<b>Jennifer Currence</b> is the president of OnCore Management Solutions in Tampa Bay, Florida, where she partners with leaders and companies to improve performance of people operations. She has been recognized as a thought leader by the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), a subject matter expert by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and has been featured in HR Magazine and on BambooHR.com. Currence has 20 years of experience in human resources, earned her MBA with an emphasis in management, and holds nationally accredited certifications in coaching (CPC) and human resources (SPHR and SHRM-SCP). She is a professor of management at the University of Tampa and served as project editor for SHRM's 2016 Learning System.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Mastering Consulting as an HR Practitioner

SHRM Competency Series: Making an Impact in Small Business

By Jennifer Currence

Society For Human Resource Management

Copyright © 2018 Jennifer Currence
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-58644-502-7

Contents

Preface, 
Chapter 1. What Is Consultation?, 
Chapter 2. Understanding the Business Environment, 
Chapter 3. Defining Your Customers and Their Needs, 
Chapter 4. Creating New HR Solutions, 
Chapter 5. Implementing New HR Solutions, 
Chapter 6. Making Change Sustainable, 
Chapter 7. Summary, 
Suggested Reading, 
Endnotes, 
About the Author, 
Additional SHRM-Published Books, 

CHAPTER 1

What Is Consultation?

If you change nothing, nothing changes. — Unknown

One Thanksgiving when my daughter was about 10 years old, my sister and I (now in charge of the feast) forgot to make the gravy (give us a break — it was our first year). My daughter was aghast, because the gravy was one of her favorite parts of the meal. Grandma overheard her complaint and joined the conversation.

"What's wrong?" Grandma asked.

"We don't have gravy, and it's my favorite part!" Julia responded.

"Well, why don't you make the gravy?"

"Because I don't know how!"

Grandma did a quick critical evaluation of the situation before her. She knew that Julia was a quick learner and, even though she was young, loved to cook. "I know how," Grandma said, "and I'd be happy to show you."

Immediately buoyant at the thought of having gravy, Julia agreed. Grandma proceeded to calmly provide her with step-by-step instructions (it helped that Grandma was a school teacher), and Julia took diligent notes and wrote down the recipe. Grandma evaluated Julia's progress and provided gentle guidance in the way only grandmothers can. Now, years later, Julia is in charge of making the gravy (when she's not overly distracted by her social media accounts).

Grandma acted as a consultant. How? She identified a problem, provided guidance to solve it, and facilitated a sustainable change in the family Thanksgiving dinner-making ritual. Moreover, she was available to provide ongoing support should Julia require assistance or additional guidance.

If grandmas can be consultants, so can HR.

How do these behaviors translate to the world of a small business HR professional? Here are just a few examples:

* Identifying a risk in the company's safety compliance, negotiating training with a vendor, and implementing new safety procedures for all employees.

* Comparing the labor and candidate pool to the demographics of the office staff and implementing a diversity initiative within the organization.

* Collecting major job functions of a department and working with the manager to reorganize workloads to ensure that processes run more efficiently.

Although we may typically think of a consultant as being someone external to our organization, we likely agree that these duties of a consultant — to guide, facilitate, and problem-solve with the goal of sustainable change — are also completed inside the company, and often by HR. My guess is that you can think of several other ways that you have identified a problem and implemented a solution or plan to solve it — just within the past week!

As I was thinking about the different tasks to describe consulting, I wanted to know what others thought. So I posed the question to my LinkedIn connections: When you think of the word "consulting," what immediately comes to mind? Here are some of the responses I received:

* Influencer (of organization's thoughts and direction) * Guidance, ideas, brainstorming, and benchmarking

* Thought partner/coach

* Additional resource

* Anxiety/change is coming

* Expensive

* Specialist/expert/experienced/credible

* Ability to analyze and define needs

* Develop implementation plans that drive success

The individual who listed "expensive" as a thought also added an interesting comment. She said, "That means that the value and reputation of the consultant must be extraordinary for it to make sense in an already tight budget." When we apply this concept to an internal employee, I see strong consultation skills as another way for an already strong HR professional (like yourself) to add even more value to his or her organization.

Consulting and HR

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. — Andy Warhol

Let's dig a little deeper into how consulting aligns with HR. Peter Block, in his tome Flawless Consulting, wrote that "most people in staff or support roles in organizations are really consultants, even if they don't officially call themselves consultants. Support people function in any organization by planning, recommending, assisting, or advising." And guess what tops his list of functional consultants? Yep. Human resources. A little farther down the list is long-range planning, organizational effectiveness, safety, and training and development. All are direct or potential HR functions.

Over the years, HR has morphed from an administrative duty to a more strategic role that is key to the effective management of a company. For example, a short 50 years ago, the extent of training in most companies was how to operate a machine or how to complete the basic tasks of a job. Now, most companies offer career development opportunities, and approximately one-half support employees' professional development efforts through educational assistance (that is, tuition reimbursement). The business environment is ripe for HR to take on more of a consulting and advisory role.

Today, the HR function is perfectly poised to provide internal consultations to organizational leaders. A savvy executive will often ask a trusted HR professional about a change that is being considered: How will acquiring this new customer affect the workforce and workflow we have now? What will happen if we move our office to a different location? Which of our existing employees can handle the new responsibilities that are emerging in our growing company? Notice that these examples involve change. Change management is an important component of a successful consultant. This makes sense: If we're happy with the status quo, why would we need to ask questions about a better way to do things? But as they say, the only thing constant is change. If you're staying the same, you're falling behind. So step one in being an effective consultant is to embrace change. (Note: This doesn't mean you always have to agree to the change in question.)

In fact, let's revisit the definition of consultation from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM): it is "the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) needed to work with organizational stakeholders in evaluating business challenges and identifying opportunities for the design, implementation and evaluation of change initiatives, and to build ongoing support for HR solutions that meet the changing needs of customers and the business" (italics mine). The entire competency of consultation revolves around helping the organization manage change.

The Personality of Change

Change can be a scary word for some. If the word "change" makes you want to use this book as a fire-starter, take a moment to consider your own level of change acceptance. Ultimately, the way we feel about change is dependent on our personality. One interesting way to think about this concept is in the context of the Big Five personality traits. These five characteristics that make up a person's personality can be defined as:

* Openness — A tendency to be curious, imaginative, intelligent, and willing to try new things.

* Conscientiousness — A tendency to be dependable, organized, achievement-oriented, and thorough.

* Extraversion — A tendency to be sociable, assertive, talkative, and active.

* Agreeableness — A tendency toward being courteous, flexible, forgiving, and trusting toward others.

* Emotional Stability — A tendency to be emotional, insecure, worried, and anxious.

Although all five personality traits are important factors for a consultant to be aware of, two stand out to me more than the others. I believe openness and conscientiousness hold a heightened level of significance for consulting. We must be adventurous enough to be able to consider another way of doing things, innovative enough to think outside the box, and mindful enough to systematically work through the steps and details of a new plan — from design, to implementation, and finally to evaluation.

For example, let's say you were hired to lead an HR department of one for a small company. You have 12 years of solid HR experience with a couple of Fortune 500 companies. Your new company hired you because of the wealth of knowledge, skills, and abilities you bring to the organization. You are excited to make some changes to enhance the HR offerings of this small company. However, each of the suggestions you make seem to be met with resistance. You hear things like "that won't work here," "that's not in our budget," or "we don't really need that." It's easy (and common) in this situation to become frustrated when faced with these challenges — lamenting to your spouse or friends that "this company just doesn't get it" or asking "what did they hire me for, anyway? I'm not able to use all of my skills." It's more difficult (but much more effective) to engage your sense of openness here. Being curious about why the organization's leaders think that your solution won't work or that they don't need it can benefit you greatly in overcoming this obstacle to making the changes you feel need to be made. Members of upper management could have many reasons for opposing your suggested change:

* They are afraid of change (which means you'll have to be more innovative in creating a business case for your initiative).

* They literally have no budget for HR initiatives (and never have — which means you'll have to focus on the return on investment for your initiative and wait for the next budget cycle to come around).

* Your initiative really doesn't work in a small business environment (which means that you must be open to either abandoning the idea completely or finding another way to achieve your optimal outcome).

Additionally, being open to your leaders' solutions can help you better understand what can (and cannot) work within your work environment as you navigate change.

Making an Impact

To learn about the dimensions of your Big Five personality traits, take the free assessment at www.123test.com/bigfive-personality-theory.

What was your strongest trait?

______________________________________________________

How does this affect your ability to embrace and affect change?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

How can you increase your level of openness?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

Of conscientiousness?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

I find that when you open the door toward openness and transparency, a lot of people will follow you through. — Kirsten Gillibrand

What Consulting Isn't

Let's talk some more about Grandma. Let's suppose now that instead of consulting with Julia, she had told her what to do based on her own experience without first evaluating Julia's position. Or that she had asked Julia questions about what she thought she should do without providing any of her own expertise. Or that she had simply told her what to do without guiding her through the process.

As we talk about what consulting is, let's clarify what consulting isn't:

* Mentoring. A mentor is someone who shares his or her experience in an effort to inspire, motivate, and assist another person.

* Coaching. A coach is someone who asks questions to help an individual move beyond current obstacles toward a future that he or she envisions.

* Training. A trainer is an expert in a field who imparts knowledge to an individual or group of people in an effort to teach them new skills or behaviors.

* Auditing. An auditor is someone who evaluates a system, usually with a purpose to find something that is wrong.

* Contracting. Yes, I know that a lot of times when we think of a consultant, we think of an outside vendor coming in to advise us on how to do something or to complete a project. While outside consulting certainly does exist, that is not the focus of this book.

Despite the fact that mentoring, coaching, training, and auditing are individually different from consulting, they have a place in a consultant's world. Portions of these four traits can be incorporated into and serve as important parts of a consultant's role. For example, a strong consultant mentors her customers by sharing her experiences so her clients learn from her expertise. She asks powerful coaching questions to understand the situation and obtain buy-in. She teaches her clients how to continue these new skills or behaviors on their own. And she evaluates her program after it's in place to consider what's working well and what she can improve.

Consulting in HR

All areas of HR can benefit from a consultative approach. In fact, all areas of the organization can benefit from HR's consultation. HR can provide the most benefit by consulting on challenges that are more strategic than tactical. Every function of HR can have tactical and strategic components.

When recruiting for your company, for example, you can do your job in a practical manner by posting jobs, reviewing resumes, conducting interviews, and sending out offer letters. You can be more strategic in your role by consulting others about holistic talent acquisition: providing guidance for creating a pipeline of candidates for oft-open positions, training managers on effective and legal interviewing techniques, and working across departments to design and implement a dynamic onboarding program — gaining executive buy-in every step of the way. Solid consultative skills will help you be more strategic in your role. There's a reason that consulting is included in the business cluster of behavioral competencies. Throughout the book, we'll explore consultation in conjunction with its business cluster counterparts: business acumen and critical evaluation.

As you can see from the above example, if every one of you reading this book incorporated more consultative and business skills in your daily actions, you could make a greater positive impact on the business and become a stronger strategic partner. The future of HR rests in our hands! (No pressure.)

The SHRM Body of Competency and Knowledge (The SHRM BoCK) states that "HR professionals are expected to be key contributors to the achievement of organizational goals in alignment with the organization's strategic direction." Do you know your organization's strategic direction? If we're going to be consultants initiating change for the enhanced future of our companies, this is paramount to understand. We cannot legitimately offer a change initiative without first understanding where our company is headed and its strategic plan to get there. An organization's strategic plan is typically simplified as its mission (or purpose for existing), its vision (where it wants to go), and its values (or guiding principles on how the organization goes about doing business).

Making an Impact

What is your company's mission/purpose statement?

_________________________

Its vision statement?

_________________________

Its values?

_________________________

Internal vs. External Consulting

As mentioned earlier, an external consultant is someone from outside the organization who comes inside our sacred halls and either completes a new project separate from anything we're currently working on or tells us how to complete our work more effectively. An internal consultant, by contrast, is someone who already works for the company. These internal consultants (the focus of this book) have the benefit of understanding the business and the culture of our organization. Nonetheless, I once had an employee question me: "Do you ever notice how an employee can suggest a change and the executives ignore it, but an external consultant can come in and make the same suggestion, and the executives think it's a terrific idea and rush to implement it?" Honestly? Yes. I have seen that occur.

What makes this happen? If we think about when we are presented with new ideas, what makes us as humans choose one suggestion over another?

* Validity. We choose suggestions that are factual and make logical sense to us.

* Credibility. We have an unconscious tendency to trust people who have the experience and knowledge to back up their statements.

* Trust. Like it or not, if we don't trust a person (for whatever reason), we are much less likely to grant him validity or credibility.

Each of these three traits directly involves both the person delivering the message and the person receiving the message. So why would an executive choose a suggestion from an outside consultant he or she has never worked with over an employee who's been with the company for seven years? For some reason, the executive places a higher trust on the consultant's validity and credibility. This means that if we're inside the organization, we need to make sure we are consistently behaving in ways that increase our validity, credibility, and trust with our managers and the executive team. This book will outline some key methods to do that.

There are some other possible differences between external and internal consultants.

I agree that some of these descriptions are not glamorous observations of the internal consultant, but please don't get discouraged. I've listed the negative depictions so that you can work to avoid being viewed in this manner or minimize the effect they have on you and your role. As for the positive descriptions, you can use those to your advantage.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Mastering Consulting as an HR Practitioner by Jennifer Currence. Copyright © 2018 Jennifer Currence. Excerpted by permission of Society For Human Resource Management.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: SHRM - Kogan Page
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1586445022
• ISBN 13: 9781586445027
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104