For the longest time, HR has taken its traditional ways with little twerks that adapted its vast movements in ways to fit the evolving business world. Although its roots lay strong in the ways of what it was decades ago. What if you got the chance to change it all? Not the actual practices, but the way its managed. Mix it up with the way other fields of expertise would do a task on their hands. More specifically how and engineer would do something. So, if you got to do HR, the engineering way, things would be different. The Scrum Framework for instance, has been used by engineers to develop and deliver products efficiently. So how does Scrum work? Well its not a hard concept, its simply breaking large projects into smaller stages, reviewing and adapting along the way. Sounds good on paper, so let just take a simple process and see how it would work out for HR.
Really know the user and what they need
In a simple example, let’s look at the annual review. It always easier knowing the people involved, one, to know the resources required and to get them familiar with the lineup as well. So, in the case of an annual review, the stakeholders would be employees, managers, peers, executive leadership, compensation teams and HR business partners. Communication, resources and requirements would flow smoothly when you really know the people in the process involved. To really fulfill the requirements aligned with the resources provided.
Get your priorities straight and refine
Next up is working as a team and breaking down the user needs, in this case the employee needs into requirements. Then organise the identified requirements according to priority to be owned and executed. Make sure the required tasks are included and prioritised, making sure the time-consuming and time-sensitive ones include deadlines and dependencies. Now in the real HR context, going back to the annual review example, this would be the actual review. The performance review sometimes can be a bit daunting, but with this method, instead of the one on one, you could simple compile all the feedback, prioritise and send it to the entire team to be worked on. In turn strengthening the entire team as a whole.
Repeat, improve and repeat
This is the part where you look back at the effectivity of the whole process that was executed. Going back to how things were done previously, see how the new faired with the old ways of doing things. The success is in the repetition of always going back to get the best out of the process. Identifying ways to improve the future looking at the way things were done. If the process is done correctly, it should result in a great experience for all stakeholders involved.
This is just the tip of the ice-burg of what Scrum as a concept really is. Although now that its out in the open to try out, you can research and make it your own. Afterall, rules can be made your own to see how things work for you. Every engineer’s desire is to satisfy the client, which HR can relate to in the employee aspect. It’s a different way to look at HR and if it requires you to step out of the usual comfort zone, then venture out to see what the world has to offer in terms of change.
