The Hats of HR- Part 1; champions of justice
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There are multiple hats that HR wears, multiple roles that HR plays in the, well, the play. When we talk about hats and roles, specifically what I mean is what responsibilities you take, or are expected to take on; what position you speak from (or are expected to speak from) in ongoing conversations and debates that occur, prior to decisions being made that impact the people who work in the organisation.
What is organisation justice? What is justice?
Let’s get a little deep, but not too deep. Ever since humans started to live and work together in communities larger than their immediate family, there has been a need for justice- what rules of fairness are determined and enforced, that people get what they deserve for their good and wrong actions. Tribes didn’t get chiefs because someone forced their way up, it was because they were needed. Boats can only be so big before they need a captain; mutual consent doesn’t survive scale.
The need for justice occurs within every social grouping and doesn’t stop at the national level; families, sports groups, community clubs, even playcentres find themselves having to decide what is right and wrong behaviour, what to apportion as deserved outcomes. A tennis club deciding who to, and how, court times will be distributive finds themselves making decisions based on fairness.
So what does this mean for an organisation? First you need to understand this a question bigger than the law. The law is a big factor in what is unfair, but it’s only a part of the landscape; outcomes can legal, but still unfair.
Remuneration, Promotions, Opportunities and even redundancies.
Let’s get into some specifics to give you some examples- but bear in mind, these are big, large topics, common areas where justice questions are decided commonly. To keep the concept of justice simple, let’s focus on ‘getting what is deserved’. When an employee gets their annual salary increase, are they ‘getting what they deserve’? if they get more money than others, is it deserved?
In a similar manner, selection for advancement, career opportunities or anything advantageous also gets similar scrutiny of fairness, of whether it was deserved. If an employee gets promoted, gets a sought-after secondment, or even sent to a conference to learn about a new technique or product, questions of whether they deserve it over others will be asked.
Also, even bad outcomes such as redundancies will be assessed under the lens of fairness. If a poor performing business unit is hit with downsizing, this will be judged as fair, as deserving. If a business unit performing well is hit by downsizing this will be judged as unfair, especially if other units are ‘escaping lightly’.
Why it’s more than a business decision
‘Hang on’, you may ask, shouldn’t the business be able to just do what suits it? So what if the employee bargains for a good rate for them? What business is it to everyone else? This is a fair question that I wouldn’t dismiss at all, and that criteria needs to be remembered- we are running a business after all. But I would note two points.
Firstly, the fairness of the decisions must be checked. It’s entirely possible that the selection process was unfair. Opportunities within the business can easily be given based on ‘who you know’, not ‘what you know’. Pay rises can favour those closing the deals, not doing the behind the scenes to make them possible. Business units favoured by executives can be overly protected, resulting in people staying with the company who are ‘undeserving’ of staying, and people going who ‘deserve’ to stay.
Secondly, people are people, and any group of people will have individual opinions of the actions and outcomes of the group. Many people have an opinion on O.J Simpson, and many people will have an opinion on whether Jamie from accounts payable should have been promoted to supervisor over Jaime.
The role of HR
So what is HR role in this? What are you supposed to do? And why HR- is this a self- aggrandizing self-appointment, or a requirement reluctantly agreed to? This falls to HR for 3 reasons.
Firstly, HR has the best visibility to see injustice. Most department tend to silo behaviour, and tend to stick to themselves and those they know. Because HR sits across departments, they have the capacity to identify inequities across departments- if one department is getting better outcomes, promoting internally without fair opportunity to others, and so forth. HR can see across better than others so can see unfairness better when it occurs.
Secondly, they are the people SMEs. What is ‘deserved’ and ‘fair’ is highly subjective, and often requires one’s radar attuned to people’s perception. Typically HR professionals have higher EQ and capacity to empathise to how other’s may perceive a situation, rightly or wrongly.
Thirdly, it’s good internal PR. It benefits organisations to internally promote themselves to their employees by their commitment to being a fair workplace. 20 years ago it was different- I’m not saying the opposite, but it wasn’t important. But at the moment many organisations see justice as important, and want HR to demonstrate this.
HR doesn’t have to wear this hat. It doesn’t deserve to by right, nor does it have exclusivity. Anyone can, and will, have opinions about fairness. HR often finds itself putting the hat on, because of our breadth of knowledge. Our vision across the organisation, our information into what is happening in the job market, our access to personnel files and history of what has happened in the past. We can see the big picture better than most, so it is good and important for everyone for HR to have a vision of fairness, to take the role of ensuring just treatment throughout the business.
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