It doesn’t matter how HR learns about the business, just do it
It turns out having a daughter was one of the best career moves Lynda Keffer ever made.
After beginning her career in HR in 1974, doing mainly pension, benefits and compensation administration, Keffer had moved into a management position by 1978 before leaving work to have her daughter.
When it was time to go back to work, she wanted to stay close to home but couldn’t find anything in HR, even part time, so she signed up for a few finance courses and took over the books for a few small companies.
Eventually she got a job as a manager of finance and administration for a high-tech company. “They hired me for my financial background,” she said — the HR, or “personnel,” experience was just a bonus.
It only took a couple of years for her to realize she missed HR, and she took a full-time HR manager position with Noranda. She’s been in HR ever since, eventually becoming national director of HR for SAP Canada before moving into career transition consulting with DBM Canada. And those few years of finance work now serve as an invaluable HR career development experience, she said, explaining her time outside HR made her a better HR person.
“I did it out of necessity back then but I realize the value of it now,” she said. “I’d like to say it was a great career plan and I did it on purpose but I didn’t.”
It’s often said HR professionals can only become fully strategic players, and be treated like business partners by finance, sales, marketing and the rest, if they understand completely what, how and why each of those functions does what it does.
HR needs to be proactive and understand issues the business is facing and why, and then create HR policies and programs to help the company meet its goals, said Keffer. So the question is, can HR people stay in HR and still gain a full grasp of what is going on outside of HR?
“You can, but I don’t think a lot of people do,” said Keffer. People don’t get the same exposure when they are consumed with the day-to-day requirements of their full-time position. Ultimately, it’s up to the HR person to go and learn about what issues the rest of the organization is facing.
“Nobody is going to come to you and say, ‘Gee, I don’t think you know much about the business. Do you want me to teach you?’
“HR professionals don’t have to go and work in finance, they don’t have to go get a marketing degree, they just need to get exposure to other parts of the business. Sometimes it is just asking the marketing person to go for lunch and just find out what aspects of the business are working for them and what the challenges are,” Keffer said. “I’ve never had anyone say no to a request like that.”
Ottawa-based executive recruiter Alan Davis said it doesn’t matter much if the HR person has experience in another function so long as she can demonstrate a history of strategic contribution to the organization.
Davis just went through three days of interviews with HR director candidates for a manufacturing facility near Toronto. Experience outside of HR didn’t matter so long as they could demonstrate a history of being proactive, he said. The client didn’t want someone who would wait for the issues to be presented to them.
There are people who are totally operations-focused and tactical in their thinking, and then there are those who are looking five years down the road. “Those are the ones who tend to move up and move on,” he said.
“We don’t necessarily look for cross-functional experience,” said Jim Parr, an executive headhunter with Toronto-based Michael Stern and Associates.
“If the track record in HR is there from working from a specialty (within HR) to management, and then making strategic changes, then we have something we can work with.”
Monica Belcourt, a professor of HR at Toronto’s York University and soon-to-be-president of the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario, said any professional is going to do a better job if he knows about other parts of his organization. “But I think it is doubly important for HR,” she said.
“HR is many things, but one of the things is a service function to internal clients,” she said. In the same way a sales person has to understand the business they are in, HR has to understand what its internal clients need.
Does HR have to leave HR to gain that understanding? There is no simple answer to that, she said. “Some businesses are very easy to understand and others are hugely complex.” Some people will be able to learn enough just by meeting with their clients, and in some cases, they may have to spend a period of time out on the front lines.
“I think it is a truism that everybody in every kind of work is improved by having outside experience and outside interests,” said David Crisp, leadership development consultant and former vice-president of HR with the Bay.
When people complain about HR not knowing enough about the business, they are really saying they don’t have enough vision, he said. Ultimately it’s up to the individual to have that vision but it helps to gain as many different experiences as possible.
Crisp began his working life as a high school teacher. After a brief stint with the teacher’s union he took a job in HR with Toronto’s East General Hospital.
“I recognized getting out of teaching I needed to learn more about business so I went and took economics and accounting (courses),” he said.
Eventually he moved on to Toronto General Hospital where he was responsible for the employee fitness centre which was also expected to make money for the hospital by selling memberships. All of a sudden he was learning how to market fitness and getting used to completing profit and loss statements, he said.
When he moved to the Bay, he sat in on management meetings every week, got a textbook on retail accounting. He kept the text in a prominent place on his desk, so that everyone who came to see him understood he wanted to know about the unique nature of the business.
You can still get to the top of HR by staying in HR, but you have to prove you care about the other areas of the business, he said. There are some people who really love doing benefits administration and that is all they need to do. But what happens if benefits is outsourced? If people want to become indispensable HR contributors it helps to get some experience outside of HR, said Crisp. “It doesn’t have to be a ton — go on a secondment, go on a training program that is focused on another type of work,” he said. “We tried with our more senior HR managers (at the Bay) to get them involved in as many broadening pieces as possible.”
After beginning her career in HR in 1974, doing mainly pension, benefits and compensation administration, Keffer had moved into a management position by 1978 before leaving work to have her daughter.
When it was time to go back to work, she wanted to stay close to home but couldn’t find anything in HR, even part time, so she signed up for a few finance courses and took over the books for a few small companies.
Eventually she got a job as a manager of finance and administration for a high-tech company. “They hired me for my financial background,” she said — the HR, or “personnel,” experience was just a bonus.
It only took a couple of years for her to realize she missed HR, and she took a full-time HR manager position with Noranda. She’s been in HR ever since, eventually becoming national director of HR for SAP Canada before moving into career transition consulting with DBM Canada. And those few years of finance work now serve as an invaluable HR career development experience, she said, explaining her time outside HR made her a better HR person.
“I did it out of necessity back then but I realize the value of it now,” she said. “I’d like to say it was a great career plan and I did it on purpose but I didn’t.”
It’s often said HR professionals can only become fully strategic players, and be treated like business partners by finance, sales, marketing and the rest, if they understand completely what, how and why each of those functions does what it does.
HR needs to be proactive and understand issues the business is facing and why, and then create HR policies and programs to help the company meet its goals, said Keffer. So the question is, can HR people stay in HR and still gain a full grasp of what is going on outside of HR?
“You can, but I don’t think a lot of people do,” said Keffer. People don’t get the same exposure when they are consumed with the day-to-day requirements of their full-time position. Ultimately, it’s up to the HR person to go and learn about what issues the rest of the organization is facing.
“Nobody is going to come to you and say, ‘Gee, I don’t think you know much about the business. Do you want me to teach you?’
“HR professionals don’t have to go and work in finance, they don’t have to go get a marketing degree, they just need to get exposure to other parts of the business. Sometimes it is just asking the marketing person to go for lunch and just find out what aspects of the business are working for them and what the challenges are,” Keffer said. “I’ve never had anyone say no to a request like that.”
Ottawa-based executive recruiter Alan Davis said it doesn’t matter much if the HR person has experience in another function so long as she can demonstrate a history of strategic contribution to the organization.
Davis just went through three days of interviews with HR director candidates for a manufacturing facility near Toronto. Experience outside of HR didn’t matter so long as they could demonstrate a history of being proactive, he said. The client didn’t want someone who would wait for the issues to be presented to them.
There are people who are totally operations-focused and tactical in their thinking, and then there are those who are looking five years down the road. “Those are the ones who tend to move up and move on,” he said.
“We don’t necessarily look for cross-functional experience,” said Jim Parr, an executive headhunter with Toronto-based Michael Stern and Associates.
“If the track record in HR is there from working from a specialty (within HR) to management, and then making strategic changes, then we have something we can work with.”
Monica Belcourt, a professor of HR at Toronto’s York University and soon-to-be-president of the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario, said any professional is going to do a better job if he knows about other parts of his organization. “But I think it is doubly important for HR,” she said.
“HR is many things, but one of the things is a service function to internal clients,” she said. In the same way a sales person has to understand the business they are in, HR has to understand what its internal clients need.
Does HR have to leave HR to gain that understanding? There is no simple answer to that, she said. “Some businesses are very easy to understand and others are hugely complex.” Some people will be able to learn enough just by meeting with their clients, and in some cases, they may have to spend a period of time out on the front lines.
“I think it is a truism that everybody in every kind of work is improved by having outside experience and outside interests,” said David Crisp, leadership development consultant and former vice-president of HR with the Bay.
When people complain about HR not knowing enough about the business, they are really saying they don’t have enough vision, he said. Ultimately it’s up to the individual to have that vision but it helps to gain as many different experiences as possible.
Crisp began his working life as a high school teacher. After a brief stint with the teacher’s union he took a job in HR with Toronto’s East General Hospital.
“I recognized getting out of teaching I needed to learn more about business so I went and took economics and accounting (courses),” he said.
Eventually he moved on to Toronto General Hospital where he was responsible for the employee fitness centre which was also expected to make money for the hospital by selling memberships. All of a sudden he was learning how to market fitness and getting used to completing profit and loss statements, he said.
When he moved to the Bay, he sat in on management meetings every week, got a textbook on retail accounting. He kept the text in a prominent place on his desk, so that everyone who came to see him understood he wanted to know about the unique nature of the business.
You can still get to the top of HR by staying in HR, but you have to prove you care about the other areas of the business, he said. There are some people who really love doing benefits administration and that is all they need to do. But what happens if benefits is outsourced? If people want to become indispensable HR contributors it helps to get some experience outside of HR, said Crisp. “It doesn’t have to be a ton — go on a secondment, go on a training program that is focused on another type of work,” he said. “We tried with our more senior HR managers (at the Bay) to get them involved in as many broadening pieces as possible.”
