If you take a look at the current landscape, you’ll likely notice two groups when it comes to HR/People practices. I’d classify them as “Old School HR” and “Modern People Ops”.
The Old School HR vibe: employer first, employees are seen only as resources (human capital management), “you should be grateful you have a job”.
The Modern People Ops vibe: employee first, employees are humans with lives outside of work, “you spend so much time at work, it shouldn’t negatively impact your wellbeing”, work should be a place where you can learn, grow, develop, and be a valued member of your team.
We have to adapt to our ever changing environment. People practices that worked 20 years ago aren’t going to work the same today. We’ve welcomed new generations into the workforce, have seen social, political and economic change, and most importantly, we’ve had the good fortune to learn from the past.
People change, so our People practices should evolve, too. At a minimum, we need to constantly evaluate and ask ourselves “are the systems, policies, and processes we use today aligned with the talent we want to retain and attract in order to carry out organizational strategy.”
As People people, this means we need to be empathetic and agile leaders with a growth mindset, and never lose sight of the fact that people are the organization’s most important asset.
Old School HR practices are still prevalent in so many organizations and are one of the reasons employees have difficulty trusting the very department that should be there to support them. These practices, which often start with Executive Leadership, look like: return to office mandates, location based pay, “check the box” DEI programs, etc. In these cases, the HR teams operate under the idea that “Leadership knows best”, and won’t pushback. A Modern People Ops practice would involve pushing to understand Leadership’s “why”, uncovering what data (if any) is leading to this decision, and helping Leadership to understand the impact of these actions on the employee experience.
Modern People Ops focuses on employee experience. Happy, engaged employees are good for business.
Happy & Engaged HR 