In just the past two-plus years, from the pandemic and geopolitical wars to an evolving workforce and talent shortage, change is happening … and it is inevitable.
“When we think about transformation, one of the things that’s so important is we are all transformation agents, whether we like it or not,” Jason Averbook, CEO and Founder of Leapgen, said Friday during his closing keynote at HRE’s HR Technology Conference & Expo 2022.
But transformation is not just an HRIS or aspect of technology alone, he warned, adding it is important everyone in an HR leadership team understands what transformation is. “Transformation is not an HR tech thing. Transformation is a business thing,” he said.
And although transformation requires HR and company leaders to reach deployment, and maintain transformation beyond deployment, Averbook shares the particular skills HR teams will want to have for a successful change in 2023 and beyond.
This means being a promoter, leader and advocate for new behaviours, Averbook shared. “You need a change agent [on your team],” he said
This capacity focuses on creating innovation in strategy.
This requires understanding and respect. “You’re leaving HR, going out into the business and listening for what you need,” he said. “If you don’t have a listener, you’re going to design things the same way forever.”
This person put the information you have collected into context, he said, which provides you value and allows you to make informed recommendations. “We have more data in the people function than we know what to do. But it sits there.”
Your team needs to be responsive to shifts and able to change “on a dime when business changes,” he said.
This skill makes sure your team is about unlearning and being able to think differently and change. “We in HR need to be abatable,” he said. “HR is one of the oldest professions in the world. If we don’t unlearn some of our ways, we keep taking our old practices … forward.”
HR should be equipped to drive understanding, he said. “All the stuff we do, we have to tell stories in a language that’s not the same language we do it in,” he added. “We have to do it quick, in 30 seconds in front of a CEO or CFO. We might make sense, but what do they speak? Cents.”
This is the boundary pusher. “We all have to be innovative. We all have to take information and use it, but at the right time,” he said.
Purpose and inclusion need to be at the heart of HR’s work, he said. “The main job is to break silos,” he said. “We in HR have to stop working north-south, and we have to start working east-west.”
This skill sees both the pulse of now and also sees around corners; visionary individuals are open-minded and bold, he said. “That’s realising if they’re in a recession what we used to do in the sunny time we might have to change in a cloudy time and care about people’s financials.”
By Nick Otto, senior digital editor for HRE. This article was first published on Human Resource Executive.
