Whether you are an official HR professional or the person tasked with HR duties at your organization, your organization needs two primary things from you: Compliance and Engagement. Call these terms what you want, but both are important to company health, growth, and survival. Compliance is a straightforward term I think. I’m using “engagement” to refer to all the things you do to attract, retain, reward, motivate, and develop employees and leaders. We should strive for a good balance. Focusing too much on compliance creates a workplace no reasonable person would want to work at. Total compliance isn’t achievable anyway. Focusing too much on “engagement” without much regard to compliance could create unwelcome charges / litigation that can also damage your brand. Whether you’re a generalist or a specialist, this balance is important.
We often see companies out of balance. This imbalance is painful for employees, HR and Management and leads to many unwanted outcomes. Turnover, low morale, poor communication, inability to find people, etc. These things have many causes, but often at the root is the imbalance. For example, many times when I talk to a company that “can’t find good people” I find their recruiting processes feel more like a compliance exercise than one aimed at attracting good people. Only 3% of EEOC charges relate to “hiring,” yet many companies focus more on screening people out to avoid liability than screening good people in. I had one client tell me they couldn’t change anything in their recruiting process without first getting it approved by their legal counsel. Anything! Again, imbalance.
How can you achieve balance? Acknowledging your imbalance is the first step. It may be that you’re the one out of balance, too focused on one these worlds at the expense of the other. Or it may be you’re pretty balanced but your management team is out of balance. I recently had an HR person tell me his management team didn’t care anything about compliance. Either way, fixing the imbalance should be near the top of your list.
CAI can help you achieve balance. We have the people, tools, and resources you need to balance things out.
- Our Advice & Resolution team is authoring over a hundred practical guides on most every HR related compliance issue. You’ll find thoughtful insights from our senior Advice & Resolution advisers based on their subject matter expertise, years of experience, relationships with regulators, and daily interactions with our valued members.
- Strategic HR services. As a CAI Member, you have unlimited access to senior HR executives who can help you assess, plan and solve operational and strategic organizational issues. Beyond assessments and advice, they also offer a series of 1:1 virtual coaching sessions to help you implement new initiatives. They bring expertise in areas such as: Realigning HR to better support the business; Aligning people to business goals; Succession planning; Developing robust leadership pipelines; Creating a results based and high performing workforce; Attracting, developing, and retaining top talent; and Improving organizational capability.
A membership in CAI can help get your company balanced…find out how we can help you and your organization today!
Doug Blizzard brings a wealth of knowledge to CAI, serving as Vice President of Membership. During his first 15 years at CAI, he led the firm’s consulting and training divisions and counseled hundreds of clients on HR and Employee Relations issues. If he isn’t speaking at North Carolina conferences, teaching classes on Human Resources or consulting clients on EEO and Affirmative Action, Doug is leading the company’s membership services.