HR Fault Lines: What are they and What Can You Do?

"Fault Lines threaten us on the earth." 

The second way to see it is that "Fault Lines Make us cautious, make us take proactive measures when we construct buildings so that we remain safe in the face of earthquakes, or tremors.  

Any break in the bedrock is a fault line.  Fault lines can be major...extending for several hundred miles (usually at the plate boundaries) or can be minor fault lines.  

Just like geological fault lines existing on earth, we have fault lines in HR.  These are at the boundaries.... the interfaces between key HR process areas.    If you look at it and reflect you may find this familiar.

We have a great talent sourcing process,  we have world class learning systems,  we have designed phenomenal talent management processes,  we have superb communication mechanisms.  Yet we have unhappy people.  Yet some of our employees don't  see the whole as a sum of the parts or greater than the sum of the parts.    You can attribute this to the fault lines in HR.   

Each process is like a plate.  The gaps between them are the fault lines. If you have a great sourcing strategy but yet are not able to convert the offers made and are shying away at 80% offer acceptance, there is a fault line in your post offer engagement.   If you have a fantastic performance platform but your career opportunities are least understood by the people you have a fault line at the interface.   So for the sum to be greater than the sum of the parts you need to design the systems such that there are seamless connections that avoid fault lines.  

If you look at the HR life cycle from talent sourcing then to recruitment and hiring right up to separations at each interface we should ensure that there is a seamless integration.  Any gaps existing should be looked at from the up stream process.   e.g.  if you have to design an effective promotion process or a career moves process then the data from the performance management as well as the HRMS (tenure, job moves,  role changes, experience details) and data on the  competency assessments, key strength areas etc need to be complete and of  good quality)   If this is not so then you have a fault line and down stream process gets affected as what goes into the process is what defines its effectiveness.   So from a design and effectiveness process you need to have an assessment frame work that maps the quality of inputs going into any downstream process and fix where the gaps lie.

That way you are able to avoid the fault lines,  the so called chasms that exist in the interface between the processes and that can result in tremors at the fault lines that are felt in both adjacent processes.  So next time you find the whole being less than the sum of the parts you know where to look for a solution.  In all probability it lies within the organization and a simple exercise of  mapping process flows can help you design a better HR system. 

Narrow The Intent-Content Gap !!!

When Content does not Match up to Intent,  you are likely to  lose credibility.  The writing on the wall is loud and clear.  If we fail to live up to the talk as HR professionals then we are seen as folks "throwing the cannon balls" at the party.

Have you experienced that people speak about some new concept they heard of,  bring in a whole lot of jargon and then quickly adapt and adopt what was working somewhere and which they claimed could be a cure all, a solution for tomorrow and then .... Bingo !!! it all fizzles out as quickly as it got created.

If this rings a bell then it is probably a case of intent-content gap at work.  What you wanted did not happen and what you expected did not turn out to be.  Here are four reasons why this happens.

a) The concept did not fit into your context:  Understanding the context is key to successful implementation.  What works for A situation does not apply to Situation B.   Try remembering the last time you tried a least common denominator approach to employee engagement.   Wont' work -  it has to be segmented if it has to work,  Not everything that motivates an employee in second year of his job career can motivate the one with a decade or more.

b) Concept not thought through:  If you tried an approach that resembles tunneling your way through the mountain then at best you can see the other side.  If you want to see the top you need to climb the mountain.  Ask few of your HR teams what a normalization process intends to achieve and see how much they can explain.... or even simpler ask what the philosophy for performance management is and if you have a common response you are doing well otherwise the concept is not clearly understood.

c) Rome was not built in a day:  Big Bang roll out without a prototype or a working model is a sure way to rework, or in all likelihood failed implementation.  Ever remember a day when your folks at work decided that you need a new process or system from the scratch, from the ground up to replace the current one.

d) You put the squirrel to do what the turtle was supposed to be doing.  Climbing trees is best done by the squirrel and swimming across the current in the river by the turtle. If you ever tried switching roles in the name of meeting goals of  job rotation then you will be in for a surprise. (Read More About This Here)

Narrow the Intent-Content Gap !!!

When Content does not Match up to Intent,  you are likely to  lose credibility.  The writing on the wall is loud and clear.  If we fail to live up to the talk as HR professionals then we are seen as folks "throwing the cannon balls" at the party.

Have you experienced that people speak about some new concept they heard of,  bring in a whole lot of jargon and then quickly adapt and adopt what was working somewhere and which they claimed could be a cure all, a solution for tomorrow and then .... Bingo !!! it all fizzles out as quickly as it got created.

If this rings a bell then it is probably a case of intent-content gap at work.  What you wanted did not happen and what you expected did not turn out to be.  Here are four reasons why this happens.

a) The concept did not fit into your context:  Understanding the context is key to successful implementation.  What works for A situation does not apply to Situation B.   Try remembering the last time you tried a least common denominator approach to employee engagement.   Wont' work -  it has to be segmented if it has to work,  Not everything that motivates an employee in second year of his job career can motivate the one with a decade or more.

b) Concept not thought through:  If you tried an approach that resembles tunneling your way through the mountain then at best you can see the other side.  If you want to see the top you need to climb the mountain.  Ask few of your HR teams what a normalization process intends to achieve and see how much they can explain.... or even simpler ask what the philosophy for performance management is and if you have a common response you are doing well otherwise the concept is not clearly understood.

c) Rome was not built in a day:  Big Bang roll out without a prototype or a working model is a sure way to rework, or in all likelihood failed implementation.  Ever remember a day when your folks at work decided that you need a new process or system from the scratch, from the ground up to replace the current one.

d) You put the squirrel to do what the turtle was supposed to be doing.  Climbing trees is best done by the squirrel and swimming across the current in the river by the turtle. If you ever tried switching roles in the name of meeting goals of  job rotation then you will be in for a surprise.