New Policies

System · December 2001

I have just recently joined a company that has been around for 50 years but has never had an HR department - I am their first HR Manager. The company has over 30 locations in three states, and has around 140 salaried employees as well as 100 - 300 hourly (depending on the time of year). Has anyone else encountered this situation? I am to give a presentation next week on what an HR department does and talk about the new policies and procedures I will be putting in writing (they have absolutely no policies, guidelines, etc in writing at this time). Any ideas on how to present this and how to roll out these policies without turning everyone off from the start?

smarti · December 2001

WOW! Have you ever got a job in front of you!!! I think you may know putting policies in place will not be hard. Selling them to the employee is another thing. I don't know how long you have been in HR however, presentation will be the key to acceptance of new policies. Companies like yours that have been in existence so long without written policies are not subject to change easily. I would suggest (and you need lots of suggestions) that you let the employees be part of your presentation. Possibly, if you were to have teams to help write policy (after you present guidelines) and have 1 person from ea team approve and edit policy per regulations, etc., they could help you present which would be more acceptable to all employees. It may also demonstrate that you are a team player and not the new dictator telling them what to do. Whatever you decide to do,please come back and tell us how your presentation went. Good Luck.

Gillian · December 2001

My suggestion is that you don't have much of an agenda about what you are going to do, at least not much that you verbalize. Tell them that the focus of HR is different in different places but you want to focus on the issues that are a problem for them and ask what they are. Ask them why they hired you. You may already know but posing that question to the management group may elicit some interesting responses, as well as give you an idea about how hard your job will be. Tell the management group that you would like to meet with them individually after the meeting, not only just to meet them but to talk about problems that they may be having. You might plan on doing an HR audit, focusing on the legal stuff like overtime, I-9's etc., and tell that you will be doing that because of all the liability if things are done incorrectly. Go easy on developing new policies because if there is any backlash about hiring you, a bunch of new policies will just look like you are placing management in a straightjacket leading to grumbling about how you are keeping them from doing their job. If they have gone this long without policies a few weeks or months won't make any difference. If you can, make new policies a result of problems that you identify, get the managers to discuss the problem and then make the policy an outcome of their discussion. That way it becomes their policy. Unless you identify something really big, leave any hot button issues alone until you have built relationships.

The fastest way to get employee interest in your job is to solve a few problems for them, such as an insurance issue. Make sure that you stay in the middle because you don't want managers to think that you are building a bridge to employees so that they can come to you behind managements back. You do want to get employees to understand that you are accessible but managers will see this as threatening if you aren't evenhanded. Later, when you have built relationships with managers you can talk to them about your role as a safety valve for employees and that the fact that employees come to you with an issue is a benefit because you can help solve the problem without it going outside of the company.

Finally, remember that how you do something is as important as what you do. Always take the consulting approach, giving the pro's and con's about an issue, rather than being dogmatic and saying "no, you can't do that".

Robert Kaiser MO · December 2001

My perspective is a little different than those you'll likely hear from--as the attorney who counsels HR managers. I have been in a number of situations where there is an HR startup dept, and each new manager handles it a bit differently. You have to feel out the culture and figure out what is expected of you. I usually suggest the approach of the HR manager as a risk manager. You don't produce the widgets, but you make sure that the company doesn't waste or lose revenue. The waste part goes to hiring good people, retaining good employees who otherwise may look elsewhere because of a myriad of problems from compensation to insurance to harassment by coworkers, to helping managers cut problem employees loose with fewest entanglements. The loss of revenue comes from spending $ (such as on attorneys) to fix a problem that could have been prevented, or from creating false expectations or resentment by employees by making policies clear enough so that the pace is not set by your supervisors who think they are little Santas while others want to be Scrooge. HR policies tend to fall into these two categories, and can be explained that way rather than as a "giveaway." Managers need to know you're on their side, not neutral, and certainly not the advocate for employees. This position will allow you, when it is necessary, to advocate for employees from a credible position. Sounds circular, but its not in practice. Good luck.

Margaret Morford · December 2001

I might also add that you tell managers that while you will be drafting policies in order to protect them and the company from liability, your purpose is to draft them with enough grey area to allow the managers the flexibility they need to run their business. The place I would start is with the corrective action (disciplinary) policy. This is the policy most used by managers and the one that employees have the most experience with. How you treat people with performance problems speaks volumns about your company and its HR effort. You need to balance fairness to the employees with flexibility for the managers to run their business.

Your overall purpose is to make HR a strategic partner in the business. While these are the latest buzz words in our industry, I find that HR people who are able to do this are rare. I have been asked to speak numerous times at SHRM meetings across the country on this topic and would be glad to talk with you about some things you need to do to position HR as a strategic partner. Please feel free to call me and I'll be glad to help you.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

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