Donna's Blog
Cultural Change?! It’s not HR's job!!!
- Details
- 06 April 2015
Over lunch with an HR professional recently, he asked me if I would be interested in engaging with them around a cultural change project. By his description, the culture was in sore need of a boost and perhaps if I came in and offered a few “motivational” workshops, we might fix it.
I asked, who in the leadership team is asking for this? What does the leadership team want from the culture? Who is your champion or sponsor for this? I fully expected him to reply “The CEO”. Instead, he said, “No-one. It’s me.”
He went on to explain that the leadership team is “too busy” for this and has delegated it to HR, and in turn, it was delegated to him. I felt very sorry for him as I believed he is either being set up to fail, or the leadership in the organisation have no idea what it takes to bring about cultural change.
I believe there are three key factors he needs to consider to get started:
Vision
- Define what you want the culture to be.
- Diagnose where it is now. What do you want to keep and what are the root causes of some of the less favourable aspects of the existing culture?
- Design the future, identifying the key levers to bring about change.
Leadership
- Do the leaders have confidence in the vision?
- Are they congruent in their behaviours?
- Can they stand in conviction about future?
Change Management
- All aspects of the organisation need to be addressed in the management of the change.
- Impact on, meaning for, and communication to Individuals, Teams & Organisation
So, what role DOES HR play? I believe the same role that any other function or leader would play. The responsibilities that fall into the function of HR can have a tremendous impact.
- Design of the employee value proposition,
- Recruiting for the desired culture,
- Education/training,
- Leadership development and succession planning ... to name a few.
And the role of Finance? Designing systems and processes that support the culture.
The role of Sales and/or Marketing? What are the key messages we want our customers to know about our culture.
Or IT? How do we provide technological infrastructure to support the culture we want to build.
It’s not one person’s job, it’s everyone’s job.
AND it takes time. Hosting motivational workshops or events, sending e-mails, and putting posters on a wall will not fix it.
It’s only when you have ALIGNMENT between the vision of the organisation and the vision of the culture, SPONSORSHIP at the highest level of the organisation and support from the senior, or executive leadership team, and a co-ordinated change management PLAN that you can begin to bring about cultural change.
