HR transformation: there is no magic wand

HR will come, wave a magic wand, and everything will start working: processes, people, managers, motivation, discipline. Preferably within a couple of months.

In reality, HR transformation looks nothing like that.

Where the work begins

When I join a company, I do not start with beautiful regulations, training programs or a new incentive scheme. First I have to work out what is actually stopping the business from moving forward.

Why do people here keep leaving? Why is the manager buried in operations? Why do two departments do the same thing while some function has dropped out altogether? Why has the company doubled in size while the structure stayed the same? Why are there seemingly strong employees who together do not produce the needed result?

That is where the real work begins.

You have to understand what the business needs and find the gap between what exists now and what the company will need tomorrow.

Structure: who is accountable for what

Sometimes it turns out the problem is not the people at all. Nobody has properly defined who is accountable for what. Two managers consider the same function theirs, and a third function is nobody's.

Then you literally have to "take the company apart": draw the org structure, revise the functions of each unit, break them down into roles and accountability. Everyone should end up with their own share of the common result and an understanding of how their work connects to everyone else's.

People and processes

Then you need to gather people for that system. And hiring a few strong specialists is not enough. Strong individuals do not yet make a strong team. They must be able to interact, reach agreement, stop pulling in their own directions and move toward a single business goal.

Next come the processes.

Who makes the decision? Who executes? Who controls? Where does one unit's accountability end and another's begin? What should happen when something does not go to plan?

And then comes perhaps the hardest part: people.

They need onboarding, development and feedback. Managers need help becoming managers rather than just the best specialists in their department. Somewhere the incentive system has to change. Somewhere a conflict has to be resolved between two strong employees who can no longer be in the same meeting room. Somewhere the owner has to be told why a good specialist will not necessarily make a good manager.

Even a dismissal is part of the HR system

And yes, sometimes people have to be let go.

But to me even a dismissal is part of the HR system. You can part in a way that leaves the person telling the market for years what a terrible company it was. Or you can do it correctly and humanely, even when the decision is unpleasant.

Because the employer brand is not built by job ads alone. It is built by a person's entire experience inside the company: from the recruiter's first call to the last day of work.

So no, HR has no magic wand.

What lies behind the "magic"

There is diagnostics, dozens of difficult decisions, the org structure, processes, hiring the right people, developing managers, conflicts, mistakes, rebuilding the system and a great deal of work with people.

And when, after a while, the company starts working differently, from the outside it really does sometimes look like magic.

Even though you know perfectly well how much work stands behind that "magic".

That is the result of my projects in companies: not separate HR tools for the sake of HR, but a system that helps the business move to the next level.

If your company feels cramped in its current structure, is growing, transforming, or you realise the old way no longer works, we can start with a consultation and work out where exactly the gap is and what makes sense to change first.

Write to me on Telegram: @Alex_Pismennaya