HR: The Superpower You're Ignoring

Kathleen Hogan, the Chief HR Officer of Microsoft until recently, stated in a 2022 LinkedIn article, if business leaders want to drive transformation, they must partner with HR from the start, not as an afterthought. Now, that foresight and strategic vision just could be the reason why Kathleen has been recently named the EVP of Strategy and Transformation for the CEO of Microsoft. So what is she trying to say? She's trying to say the fact that your HR leaders are critical to the development, growth, and success of your team, business, and even your career. Yet most managers only talk to their HR leaders when they have a problem child or someone's about to get fired. In this episode, we're breaking down why so many managers overlook HR as a strategic business partner and the cost of that blind spot. And what's possible when you shift your mindset and start leveraging HR like the strategic powerhouse that they truly are. Whether you're a corporate leader, a middle manager, or an HR professional ready to reshape your seat at the table. This episode is your blueprint for doing just that.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you are ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

I've been wanting to have this conversation for quite a while because across my client base, I see vast differences between how Many managers, middle managers to senior executives, really partner and leverage HR as a power— powerful tool, a powerful ally that can help them proactively, strategically, and effectively to not only address problems, but also to craft and maneuver what their team, what their culture, or what their overall business is going to look like. Leading to the success that they want for themselves, the team, and the business. And so the goal of this discussion is to successfully help you shift your mindset in— away from HR being a compliance department into one of a strategic partner, ally, and leadership tool to help you and your team to grow and foster a culture that breeds success. Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, she goes about talking around this subject by saying, it's about people at the center of everything we do. Our HR leaders are partners in designing that future. And so think about it. We all say that HR is about people. And if they are about people, then every manager with people supporting their goals and objectives and the success of their team and themselves as a leader really need to lean on the core function that is the people function. And that is HR. And even the CEO of a midsize SaaS organization commented, our CHRO is one of the most important voices in the room. She influences every major decision we make. Think about that. You are sitting around maybe doing some calibrations or some strategic planning or some team structuring or restructuring. And who best to provide you all the knowledge, ideas, creative out-of-the-box thinking, a strategic vision, a direction on where the work environment is moving. Who better to provide you all of that than your HR business partner? So what I really want you to be thinking about is when was the last time you really brought HR in as a partner, strategically, proactively, before a crisis hits, or as you're getting ready to draft an organizational plan? When was that last time you did? Now, if you say, "Oh, I can't even remember when I did," or, "Well, I was somewhat forced to do it once I got into it." Well, that's okay. No judgment here at all. But what I want you to do is I really want you to consider shifting your mindset toward them being just a cop or an enforcer or a policymaker. Into someone who can be kind of lockstep with you in really crafting what your culture and your team and the overall business looks like. Let's discuss some of the core reasons for this lack of partnership between HR and the business. And some of them are extremely valid, but again, what I want you to do as we talk through these is checkmark whether or not this is a reason why you have not partnered with your HR business partner. And it's, again, it's okay. We just need to figure out what those blind spots are and what you could be doing about it. Okay. One of the first ones we already mentioned is HR is viewed as almost like a transactional organization, meaning they deal with benefits, they deal with payroll, they deal with bonuses and salaries and promotions and advancements. They deal with very transactional activities. And that's true. However, that's just a small part of what HR handles on a day-in, day-out basis. However, they also deal with a lot more strategic initiatives and strategic visioning for the organization than just that. The next one would be many managers aren't aware of the capability of HR, aren't aware of what's outside that transactional benefits and, and salary compensation type of activity. And therefore, that's a simple conversation to have with your partner to really understand, all right, what can you bring to the table? How should I be leveraging you? What is the best time and place for me to be bringing you into conversations about the direction I'm taking my, my team and my business. The, but the most important one that I find to be affecting managers, especially the middle managers, though it does affect the upper management levels as well. And that is the fear of bringing in HR to the point where they can see the weaknesses or the lack or the dysfunction of a team or even themselves as a leader. And so they hesitate to partner with HR because they don't wanna necessarily put a spotlight on where they might be lacking as a leader. And then lastly, there's a misalignment between the business units and HR. What the expectations are, what are the goals and objectives? What are each of the functions looking to achieve and do they marry up? Do they align? Do they support and complement one another? Now, this can be a much bigger kind of Pandora's box that's open as far as, are there people goals and objectives, leadership objectives when it comes to the people development side that are passed down from senior management all the way down to the lowest levels of managers? Are those goals, objectives, and expectations supporting one another and therefore holding each other accountable to ensuring that if people are our number one, number one asset, are we targeting and are we operating and are we aligning to our principles and our values that are only benefiting the people of the organization? So give yourself a check mark for any of these 4 reasons that you may be struggling to really partner proactively and strategically with your HR partner. You just know them as an admin or compliant only transactional type of function. You don't really understand how you could be leveraging them. You're apprehensive about showing your weaknesses or showing your gaps or showing your blind spots or dysfunction of yourself as a leader and/or of your team. And then lastly, there's just a misalignment of expectation when it comes to your business goals and objectives and that of HR. Now, every one of these 4 mindset blocks, I'll call them fears, excuses, I'll even call them excuses. There's a workaround. There's a solution. There's a different explanation and different steps and actions you could be taking in order to address them. But before we get into that, I wanna definitely talk about the cost of you underutilizing HR and not having them lockstep with you as you are not only working your way into your own leadership of your team or organization, but also of that vision of the culture you're trying to build, of the overall team development that you're trying to instill. There's a cost by not utilizing HR from the very beginning. The cost of not aligning to HR can cover several areas. It can cover overall team performance. It can cover overall organizational impact, as well as your manager-level impact around you personally. So let's first kind of work backwards. So overall team performance impact. Well, you're not maximizing the ideas and the strategies, the initiatives, the programs that HR is, if not developing, they're well aware of and/or they have in place in order for your team and/or yourself to get the training, learning, and development that you need that will help you to really build a high-functioning team that you're looking for and you need in order to accomplish your goals. So you're missing out on that opportunity. The other thing around team performance is if you do have, as I mentioned earlier, if you do have a problem child or you're at a point of having to terminate someone, well, that's just gonna create turnover and that's just gonna create team dissatisfaction, low morale, because of the fact that maybe, just maybe, without engaging HR, they didn't have an opportunity to get the coaching, the training, the support that they needed, the guidance that they needed in order to change their ways. So again, low morale and high turnover that you weren't wanting or anticipating. And more importantly, if you are losing If you don't want to call them a high potential because of their problem child issues, look at it as if they are high productive, high generating type of individuals with some challenges or with some issues or with some behavioral changes that are needed. Well, you might have missed the opportunity to correct those things in order to maintain the tactical or the technical functional expertise. That that individual has. So that's team performance. When it comes to organizational impact, well, we talked about a little bit about it. High turnover. It'll create burnout. It, from an organizational perspective, it'll create low morale if all of a sudden they're seeing that there are opportunities, there are ways to solve problems that you're not considering because you're not engaging someone that has a very objective, very unbiased view into your business, then you're missing out on those opportunities and that'll create the turnover, the burnout, the low morale. As well, if you're not in lockstep with HR from the get-go, you could be going about the hiring, the development, the coaching. And the accountability of team members ineffectively, poorly, not, not in the degree that HR, with their expertise, their insights, their experiences, their encounters, the tools that they have, they could be providing you in order to ensure that your hiring decisions are good, your accountability actions are strong and effective. Any coaching, development, or training is appropriate. At the same time, you might have this grand plan for how you want to really instill a, a specific type of culture and create a specific type of environment for your team. And, and yet without the input from HR, you might be using outdated strategies, outdated ideas, outdated initiatives. And therefore they don't stick. They don't grab a hold. They don't, they aren't effective and they don't amount or result to a return on investment that you're, you're looking for. Even if that's just soft, intangible type of benefits, high morale, high satisfaction, employee effectiveness, productivity, so forth and so on. So you, so again, HR is that conduit to bring all that knowledge, all that experience and expertise into those conversations that you would be having. Then, of course, I saved the most important one when it comes to organizational impact, and that would be similar to the hiring decisions. You would probably be miss-shooting at whatever succession planning you're landing on. So you might have a specific idea or ideas around your succession planning for yourself or for other team members. You might have a very biased, a very narrow-minded, no offense, a very specific idea of what that succession plan should look like. Your HR partner, again, they are objective, unbiased. They're looking across the business, not just at your team. They have a lot more insight than you might have, and they would be able to kind of clear out any blind spots, kind of wash away any murky ideas or, or suggestions that you have that might not be in the best interest of your team, of yourself, and of the business. And they can bring a fresh viewpoint on that type of plan. Organizational impact is succession planning. High turnover, burnout, low morale, if you're misaligned in your hiring decisions or your team advancement decisions as a result of not getting HR involved, and/or you're implementing initiatives and programs that aren't sticking as a result of maybe outdated or, or narrow-focused type of programs and initiatives. And then we talked about the team performance being, again, low morale, impact to high functioning capabilities of your team if you're not aligning with HR to support your team. And then for you personally, or the cost of you not aligning is you don't know what opportunities are out there. Too often I'll hear from clients of mine that they are very tunnel vision into the function or the business that they're in. Say that they're part of, obviously, cross-functional type of organization, but more importantly, they also have multiple business units. Individual, separated, unique business units. Well, you, if you're just maintaining your vision in what it is that you want to do for yourself and for your team, you might be tunnel visioned into just your silo or your function or even your own business, let alone all the other businesses with all the other functions and all the other opportunities that, that are, may exist out there. So you're missing out on potential growth opportunities as a result of that for yourself and even for your, your team members. At the same time, you could be taking on risks and not putting into place some critical— in some cases, it could be safety, it could be DEI or diversity type of programs that HR is aware of. HR knows are important. HR knows will prevent any type of current or future legal issues that you might be dealing with. If you're acting alone, then you're missing out on all of that key information. And then lastly, if you do have some dysfunction, if you do have some discourse or issues with team dynamics, and you're trying to handle them by yourself without proactively, consistently engaging HR, well, then you're also adding a risk and a cost to the business. Because again, going back to the organizational impact, it'll create high turnover, low morale, burnout, so forth and so on. A lot of costs to the business for simply avoiding or ignoring, or just having a blind spot to bringing in your HR partner from the start. Now let's look at the benefits, the value. The impact, positive impact to you, to the team, to the business when you see HR as a strategic partner. Now you're making very fact-based, data-driven type of decisions. You're creating fact-based, data-driven ideas. And visions and plans, you are able to really craft the, the goals and the objectives and the measurements that you would want to have for the culture, for your team, for yourself, and maybe the overall business as a result of partnering. Why is that important? Well, wouldn't you want to save yourself a lot of headache by actually making those decisions, creating those plans, and implementing programs and initiatives that have been proven before or have statistics behind or been there, done that, dos and don'ts. Wouldn't you want all that information when it comes to making some really important decisions and/or creating new ideas and new visions and directions for the business? Absolutely. And HR would have that for you. The other thing too is you'd be able to make these decisions faster and more effectively than you would have if you're acting alone. Because once again, you know, I see managers struggling all the time when it comes to them trying to do it themselves, them trying to look across their team and create those career paths, create those calibrations, create those talent development plans, create those accountability goals and objectives for their team members, let alone acting on them, let alone actually implementing what it is that they're trying to define or create or put into place. And so HR again has a lot of information. They have a lot of plans. They have a lot of initiatives and programs. They pretty much have been there and done that. And great if you have an idea that they haven't taken on or they have— that hasn't been brought to them before. And now you have a partner in crime to get that defined and implemented. And again, faster than if you were acting alone. Now, another one would be HR is going to help you look at your team individually and collectively. What is working? What is not? What are some gaps? What are things to be leveraged? What are things to be addressed? What are things to be learned? What are things to be coached and developed? To where then you are, you can feel confident around really building and developing a high-functioning team. By doing that, it addresses some of those impacts that we talked about. By doing that, it ensures that individual team members feel valued, feel important, feel as if they're contributing. They feel confident because they, know the goals and expectations. They know their career path. They know what it is you're working to accomplish, therefore what they are there to support you in accomplishing. And as a result of that, you're gonna retain those top performers. You're going to elevate individual and team effectiveness. You're going to increase productivity and efficiency and effectiveness. There's so many benefits as a result of you just simply partnering with HR to really strengthen your culture, strengthen your team, strengthen yourself as a leader, the plans and the initiatives and the goals and the objectives that you have for yourself. And by partnering with them in the development and the growth and the enhancement of your team and yourself, then you are proactively developing your own leadership acumen. And so addressing again, that other, you know, fear of engaging HR, not wanting visibility to the weaknesses of yourself and/or the dysfunction of your team. Well, we all have cracks. We all have blemishes. We all have warts. And what we want though, as leaders, is we want to clear those blind spots and HR can help you with that. So then you know where the gaps are, you know where the blind spots are, you know where the weaknesses are. But at the same time, you know also where the opportunities and the strengths are. So now you could put a plan in place for your team members, for the team as a whole, and for yourself to close those gaps, to elevate everyone's performance and everyone's capability. And therefore, again, benefit being that you're going to drive up employee satisfaction, you're gonna drive up retention, you're gonna drive up top performer productivity, and many more things. Those far outweigh and far more contribute to your overall success and the business's success than not engaging and having those costly impacts to the business. So if you can shift your mindset from HR is transactional, HR is compliant, HR is a cop, HR puts the fear of God in everyone when they walk in the room. If you could put that aside for yourself and for your team members, by even coaching and developing your team members to the benefit and the value and the contribution HR can make to themselves and the team, then you're gonna separate yourself and differentiate yourself from any other leader around you. And how would that be? And then what would that do for your career? Well, we're gonna show you is what I have to say. Let's talk about 5 things you could be doing to build that partnership, to build that integration, to have someone to lean on when it comes to the, the planning, the implementation, the assessment, and the growth of your team, of the business, and even yourself. So first off, engage your HR business partner. Know who they are and bring them into a room. If you aren't accustomed to engaging with them, bring them into the room. Sit down and talk with them about what your goals and what your objectives and the vision you have for, for your team and the culture, and let them in on what it is that you have planned, or you'd like to plan for now and going forward, and then turn it to them and say, how can you help me? How can you support me? What expectations should I and would I have of you in support of these goals and objectives that I have for myself and the team? So that would be the very first thing. Now you might say, well, I engage with my HR partner when I need to. During mid-years, during end of years, during calibrations, during the company strategic planning. No, that's not the extent of which you should be engaging them. You should be engaging them to where they are lockstep with you each and every day of the plan that you're working to implement. So you can proactively engage them on opportunities amongst your team, issues you're having with your team, new plans, new goals or objectives that you have for the team and for the business. Strategic visioning for the future that you might have, engage them on a regular and consistent basis. It certainly should not be 3 or 4 times a year. It should be regularly as you are working through keeping your team and the goals and the business moving forward and growing. Now that said, when you are strategic planning, succession planning, calibrating, make sure they're there, not they're there after you've compiled and crafted your own end result, but in the process, let them help you expedite, help you get rid of the muckety-muck, help you work through any ideas or questions or challenges that you're having. Do that upfront. So then you're saving yourselves a lot of time, of which you're very limited to any free time. Make sure they're engaged upfront so they can ask you the questions from the very beginning as far as what you're thinking, what you're planning, what you're struggling with, what ideas you might have, but they might have. Engage them from the very beginning and ask them for insights. That would be the second one. Ask your HR leader for insights into the business, insights into the industry, insights into where the people world is going when it comes to the labor force, the workforce, the union force, whatever the case might be that might impact how you are able to run and operate and grow your business and grow your team. Ask them for those insights. They have them. They have them. And they'll probably surprise you with the amount of knowledge that they have. And it would, again, it would save you time, save you space and energy in having to figure that all out yourself. This is not the time to think, oh, well, I can do it all myself and I have all the great ideas and I want to be the, the, the victor of my people, my culture. No, that, that's, that's swallow your pride and engage the, the person who, or persons who can help you best and fastest and most effectively, because that will just be what really puts a spotlight on you and your leadership. Now, when you are developing strategies and plans, as I mentioned, partner with them, co-create. Partner with them. Let them help you define your goals. Let them help you define those career paths, those succession plans, those accountability checkpoints, those performance review process and feedback. Again, don't go it alone on any of this. And then in turn, make sure that you are also highlighting and promoting and championing HR-led initiatives, HR-led programs. It could be a leadership program. It could be a skill development program. It could be a cultural program. Recognize the value that HR brings to you and your people and back them up and champion what it is that they're working so hard to bring into the organization, into your team, to elevate and advance the capabilities, the productivity, the effectiveness, the efficiency, the, the high potential, just overall capacity and functioning of your team. Champion them as much as they're going to champion you. Now, they will have hard conversations with you if need be. At the same time, they're also going to have your back and make sure that they are the partner for you. And then look at them as an enabler, not as a cost center, not as a drain, not as a cop, not as a, not as an afterthought. Think of them as an enabler for you to be the best leader you can be. It'll make your job so much easier. So how can you do it? 5 ways. Invite them to the table when it comes to you, your strategic planning, succession planning, whatever the case might be. Ask them for their insights on the business, on the industry, on the workforce, on whatever external factors could impact you and your business. Co-develop your programs and initiatives with them. Share your ideas and let them help craft it with you. Maybe they have ideas for you that you haven't considered that you then can work together to craft and implement and succeed with. And then be sure to also be championing any programs or initiatives that HR is also leading. It's almost like I wanna add that you should also be championing HR to your people. Most employees, let alone managers, most employees fear HR. The minute HR walks into a room, everybody shuts up. So what you need to be doing as a leader is you need to be championing HR to your people to get them to recognize them as a partner, as someone that they can lean on. Someone to confide in, someone that they should trust, someone that they should build a relationship with. And then lastly, treat HR as an enabler, someone who's going to help you, someone who's gonna give you the tools and the capability to execute on and achieve the goals and the plans that you have for yourself. Don't look at, at them as a cost center, as an expense. They are not a cost center. They are your partner, your powerhouse tool that will get you from where you are today to the goals and the objectives that you have for tomorrow. As we close out, I want you to be considering something. What is one business challenge that you're facing and how could your HR partner help you to solve it before it becomes an issue? That could be people, process, policy, whatever the case might be. What is one challenge you might be facing that they can actually proactively support you on and help you work through before it escalates? I wanna encourage you to schedule a strategy conversation with your HR leader. Ha, sit down. If you aren't familiar with each other. To the degree of which you can leverage each other effectively and productively, then sit down and have that conversation. Lastly, the future of leadership, your specific leadership, isn't about what you control. It's about who you collaborate with, and your HR leader might just be the secret weapon you've been ignoring. What can you do to change that? And if you aren't sure, then be sure to schedule some time with me and let's talk. Go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall and let's talk for 30 minutes. I'll give you some ideas, some tips, and some strategies for moving forward and really ensuring that you are leveraging the powerhouse tool that's right there in front of you that you might not be optimizing. All right. Before we leave, as a highlight, next episode, we're going to be talking to John Gates of Salary Coach. He is going to be talking about how you can be confident and be a powerhouse when it comes to negotiating your pay. And so if you need some negotiation secrets, that episode is going to be one hell of a powerhouse. Episode. So be sure to subscribe, like, and follow us on any one of your podcast streaming services or on our YouTube channel, Shed the Corporate Bitch TV. And you can also go to ballofirecoaching.com/podcast and follow and subscribe to any one of your podcast streaming services right there. Until next time, have a powerhouse of a week, and I will see you right back here the next time. Bye.

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.