Each year, SHRM has an annual student conference. A friend and fellow blogger sent me a call for presentations to submit an idea to present at the 2010 conference in June. Well, one thing came up, and then another, and even though I drafted out a proposal, I did not follow through. If I did follow through, here's what I propose I'd say.

HR is a profession in the midst of change. Once a very transactional and administrative role, HR professionals can now play influential and transformational roles, impacting and delivering on business objectives.

If you watch and listen carefully, you will see and hear the struggle between the old and new; between compliance and innovation, and between complacency and progress. Progress and innovation are winning out as the HR profession changes to provide the services and expertise organizations need to succeed.

If initiating, leading and fostering inevitable change is what you are interested in, you've come to the right place.

Fitting In

HR professionals come into the profession in different ways, for different reasons and with different experiences. If you are making the decision to enter HR and start with the degree to support it, you are one giant step ahead of me (unless you can make a connection between a BS in Biology and HR) and many others like me. Some of us did other things before HR and we fell down the rabbit hole.

Human resource roles come in all shapes and sizes. HR is in the private, public, profit, and not for profit sectors. HR is in the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, the school system and the government. HR staffs your grocery stores, recruits health care providers for your medical centers and develops the skills needed to ensure businesses meet goals. HR roles range from a very traditional, transactional function to a strategic, transformational function and everything in between.

Human resource professionals work locally, nationally or internationally. They lead departments, teams or run their very own department of one. They work full-time, part-time or own their own. They travel frequently, sporadically, or stay close to home. They insource, outsource, contract, or consult.

Take a look at your skills, experiences, aspirations. Now take a look at the organizations and the roles? Something peak your interest? Got it? Great. Now that you know where you fit in, for lack of a better term, it's time for you to stand out.

Standing Out

HR is not rocket science. Sure, the legal stuff can appear to be complex but it is not. Nothing in HR is beyond comprehension. I can teach a new HR professional how to review a resume, how to write a discipline charge, and how to make an employment offer. What I can't teach a new professional (or an old one) is how to think creatively, to look beyond the question being asked to identify the real issue at hand and that HR often means putting two plus two together and getting five. Nothing in HR is black and white and nothing is a straight line movement from point a to point b. There are detours and the detours trip up the unprepared all the time.

Learn the ins and outs of the technical side of HR but don't stop there. Don't be run-of-the-mill. If you are not already doing so, pressure, push and prod your instructors to stay current on HR issues of the day; supplement your course work outside the classroom with real-time readings and ideas from HR professionals and business leaders and above all, be responsible for your own learning. Seek mentors out, ask questions, and don't be afraid of jumping into discussions. Don't minimize your contributions because "you are new to the field, or just a student." Don't do it. Just don't.

Your mission: stand out from the crowd so I can find you among the masses.

Taking The First Step

My trip to wonderland started when I was interviewing for a non-HR role and the team asked me if I had ever considered Human Resources. I had not. "Boring," I said. "Not so," they countered and I took them up on their offer to spend time observing an HR department in action at one if their manufacturing plants. Sure, there was some processing of personnel actions and benefits work being done, but there was much more. It was more dynamic than I had ever anticipated. I took the first step and haven’t looked back since.

HR is not what it used to be and it is changing every day. Your trip to wonderland is starting now. It's your career, own it.

Welcome to the profession.

Photo credit iStockphoto

The workplace is stressful these days and people are on edge. If it's not increasing demands, decreasing dollars and limited staff, it's the human resource staff standing in the way of supervisors and managers doing what they want to do, how they want to do it, and when they want to do it.

The No-No Girls

Back in the day, me and my HR team of two set out to redefine a vision and goals for human resources in our small, but growing, organization. We sought feedback from our customers. One message came back loud and clear. . .we were the "no-no girls." Oh snap is right.

In the world of impactful learning experiences, this "no-no girls" experience tops my list. While I very consciously attempt to frame my role and that of my staff to not be that of the enforcers, I know it's only a matter of time before it sneaks up on us and resurfaces again. It's the nature of the beast.

HR and Formal Authority

The role of a supervisor or manager is to supervise and manage people to meet desired outcomes and basically, the role of the HR practitioner is to support and advise the supervisor or manager on how to do so effectively.

HR practitioners and leaders have very little, if any, any formal authority in supervisor-employee relations. Knowledge? Yes. Expertise? Yes. Informed Opinions? Yes. Not so informed opinions? Yes. Informal authority? Yes. Influence? Yes. Formal authority? No.

It's when HR leaders and professionals use knowledge, expertise, and experience to develop guidance and that guidance becomes a directive that the the "no-no girls" are on the job and problems arise. HR professionals across the globe wonder why our noble efforts to ensure that a disciplinary action is irrefutable or a manager's decision has a snowball's chance in heck on being overturned on appeal are met with such resistance.

The shift from advising to directing, as big as it is, can actually be a very subtle one. In fact, it can be so gradual a shift that HR professionals themselves don't even realize they've crossed the line and started exerting formal authority where none exists - until they find themselves in the eye of the tornado.

Defusing the Tension

All the best intentions aside, if you or your team are filling a role your customers do not want or need you to fill, there will be tension. If there's tension now when there wasn't before, something shifted in your relationship, or your team's relationship, to your customer or the organization.

Defusing the tension doesn't require anyone to lose a head. HR professionals could respond to the tension in kind or they can identify the situation for what it is - an opportunity to clarify expectations through role negotiations. Role negotion is a perfect way to clarify expectations of individuals, teams, or departments; understand what they need from each other or are expected to deliver; determine how, when and why they interact; and to build in necessary personal or procedural accountability.

So, get out there and negotiate a role today.

Photo credit iStock Photo

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