Earlier, the personnel policy was to fence off people with a plywood partition with a small window for the contingent. In the personnel department there were cabinets with personal files and a heavy safe with work books. And tons of dusty folders on strings. The title of the article is dry and old-fashioned: today they don’t say “personnel policy”, today they say “human resource management strategy”. Reading and understanding.
Chrysalis to Butterfly: Human Resources Transformation
If you figure it out, there is no factual error in the word "frames". There is only a layer of dust and the smell of naphthalene, which hinder the promotion and understanding of new trends and the modern concept of human resource management. Over the past ten years, what used to be called personnel policy has become one of the most important elements of a company's strategic management. Now this is top notch management, which is tightly embedded in the business strategy of the entire company. HR-directors are among the key top managers in any advanced company, they are not engaged in the personnel policy of the enterprise, but create added value through the effective use of human capital. The role of HR has grown and continues to grow: most senior executives believe that HR will be the defining business unit of the future. Despite terminological conflicts, the definition of a personnel strategy (policy) is as follows: it is a human resource management system that includes rules, norms, principles and methods of work that are formulated and fixed in accordance with the mission and goals of the company.
Old Footage
Unfortunately, not all Russian companies, including some government agencies, see a fundamental difference between personnel work and new generation corporate standards: codes of ethics, corporate culture rules, etc.
If you stick to the old settings, the personnel policy of the organization will be presented in the form of traditional personnel records management - the classics of paper bureaucracy. These paper seas are not the worst thing, the saddest thing is that many employees and managers still believe that personnel work is hiring, firing, New Year's gifts for kids and statements sent to the accounting department on time to pay wages.
Types of HR strategies (policies)
- Passive politics: unfortunately more common than we would like. Actions are taken only to eliminate "personnel troubles". Paperwork, gifts and corporate holidays - a skinny set of actions, no initiatives.
- Reactive policy: Company management and HR managers take action to eliminate negative phenomena, such as high employee turnover or industrial conflicts. Putting out fires is not the smartest strategy for working with people.
- Proactive Policies: Found in most companies that consider themselves cutting edge. Everything is in order with forecasts - they are created on the basis of surveys, audits and analyzes. There is only one problem: the company does not have enough funds and resources to influence the situation. The weak point in such companies is usually targeted personnel programs. Resources are far from being understood as finances, we are talking about the high competence of HR department employees, which is often lacking.
Active policy: there are forecasts, resources, and monitoring of program implementation with adjustment of actions based on changing external and internal factors. An active personnel policy is the best option for any company, regardless of its specialization, size, stage of development, region, etc
Principles of personnel management
There are many principles of personnel policy, they can be different, but the general “typical” principles are as follows:
- The principle of constant and effective feedback from employees.
- The principle of justice in everything.
- Selection, evaluationand promotion of employees based on transparent tests.
- Employee social equity.
- Balance of innovation and traditional formats in HR.
- Control and transparency of the HR department.
What are the goals
Personnel policy goals can be formulated in a variety of ways. It all depends on the profile, the degree of "advancement", the stage of development and many other properties of the company. For example, for a department called the "Personnel Policy Department", the following goal is more suitable: the formation of capable labor collectives, the rational use of human resources, and the creation of favorable conditions for their all-round development.
And for a department called "Human Resource Management", the goal may look different: contributing to the achievement of the goals and objectives of the company through the formation and support of a competent and professional team of employees.
State personnel policy
First, the official definition from the materials of the Russian government. It should be noted that this wording is quite consistent with modern requirements:
The state personnel policy is a set of values, principles and supporting mechanisms for the development and effective use of the entire working-age population of Russia.
The personnel block is perfectly structured and provides comprehensive information on priorities, goals and main characteristics. The specifics of state work is reflected in several new and interestingpriorities:
- Protecting employees and organs from protectionism.
- Reproduction of the elite with the "public service" competency.
- Changing the status and increasing the prestige of civil servants.
Other priorities and principles are quite within the framework of generally accepted modern standards of work with personnel.
HR services (that's what they are called) are responsible for a clearly defined range of tasks:
- Attestations, evaluation, professional competitions.
- Corporate work with fixing the passage of public service.
- Planning and forecasting personnel situations.
- Internships, advanced training, seminars for civil servants.
Everything is modern, accurate and… a bit dry. Well, this option is also possible. This is truly a personnel policy without any "lyrics".
Formation and support of the personnel management strategy
The most important factors in the formation of personnel policy are the mission, goals and objectives of the company itself. Everything that HR managers do must be very closely integrated into the activities of the organization, otherwise it will again turn into a “human resources department behind a plywood partition.”
The steps to create an HR strategy are usually as follows:
- Analysis of data on employee engagement and other surveys, labor market surveys.
- Define top priorities based on current company strategy.
- Coordination withguidance.
- Introducing employees to the new concept: promotion, clarifications through all channels of internal communications.
- Budgeting, grading and other calculations of financial resources for the implementation of the personnel strategy in the current year.
- Planning and forecasting the number of personnel, the formation of staffing, curriculum, etc.
- Implementation of scheduled operations.
- Evaluation of performance: personnel audits, surveys, identification of problems and ways to solve.
Components of modern human resource management
- Recruiting block: analysis, planning, search, hiring and adaptation of new employees.
- Learning and development: a powerful block with a huge number of new forms of learning.
- Compensation and benefits: one of the most digitized components of the job.
- Personnel assessment: multi-component with the mandatory involvement of personnel and data analysis - an interesting direction.
- Formation and support of corporate culture: one of the most difficult blocks of work. Habitual words, the meaning and functions of which few people understand and even more so perform.
- Internal communications: the new trend, sometimes referred to as "the good life in the company".
- Human Resources: the most traditional and the only process that can be outsourced without loss to the company.
- Talent management: an integrated process for finding, attracting, leveraging and retainingthe best employees of the company. This process includes almost all components of personnel work. There are not in all companies, but only in advanced ones.
Digital revolution in HR
Over the past five years, not just total automation of systems has appeared. New thinking and new approaches to interaction with employees - from automatic initial search for new employees to interviews with bots. The digitization of the recruiting component of personnel management clearly shows the rapid dynamics of changes in processes that a few years ago seemed “one-piece” and not amenable to any digital intervention.
Now, special HR applications count and analyze employee engagement, help create and implement gamification in a variety of corporate processes, etc. The data is located in complex cloud systems that are easy to implement and inexpensive.
Tribute to fashion: and now turquoise companies
It is impossible to ignore another phenomenon in the field of modern management - this is HR fashion. The latest trend for today is the fashion for turquoise companies (some people think that the color should be emerald). It all started with the book Discovering the Organizations of the Future by Frédéric Laloux. The trend was catalyzed by Sberbank with German Gref, a big fan of surprising an audience of grateful listeners. Work without bosses, without KPIs, but with coaching and customer care.
Teal companies are neither the first nor the last fleeting vision in the history of managementstaff. Without objecting in principle to this approach (in some companies, the method is probably quite acceptable and effective), I would like to warn against blindly following such a fashion. Especially if this fashion is born at the zero level of managerial experience: "from feudalism immediately to communism." It is true, why spend efforts on automating processes, building a corporate culture, training managers? It is better to simply remove these leaders.
CV
Balance is needed always and everywhere. A balance between traditional HR systems and the many innovations that are being offered on the market in huge quantities is a must and quite possible. To do this, you need to read, think and consult. One thing is clear: personnel management is one of the most dynamic and rapidly changing management industries. Without transforming the old into the new, companies will not be able to meet today's challenges.
Probably, instead of the words "personnel policy" it is still better to say "personnel management strategy". These are not just new terms, this is a new management format with all the consequences: bright and promising.
