शैडोइंग अभ्यास: #02 Common Pitfalls of building Human Resources Strategies - वीडियो के साथ अंग्रेजी बोलना सीखें

Music Hello

and a warm welcome.

I'm Armin Troost, professor at the Fortwangen University in Germany.

And this is my series on Human Resources Strategies,

a real master course for advanced HR students, professionals and executives.

This series is available on YouTube and on all podcatchers like iTunes or Spotify.

All slides that support this series are available on my website.

For more information, please read the description to this YouTube or podcast.

I'd also like to refer to my book, Human Resources Strategies, available at most online bookstores.

So, again, thanks for listening.

Have fun and gain valuable insights into the fascinating world of HR strategies.

Yes, welcome back.

As I indicated in the very first episode, I will share with you a stepwise approach how to build an HR strategy.

And I think that once you hear this approach, you might think on hindsight,

yeah, makes sense, yeah, of course, yeah, I hope so.

I hope that you think that way, actually.

But actually, reality very often is different.

Very different.

And when you look in certain companies, especially into mid -sized companies or large corporations,

I mean, you will find a lot of things in HR, a lot of HR -related things like employer branding,

referral programs, talent development programs, variable pay systems and all this HR stuff.

And this is what we're talking about, things companies are actually doing.

And the question is really, how did these things really appear?

I mean, there must have been one point in time where somebody in an organization made a decision.

Maybe not one person, maybe a project team or many people who made a decision, well, yes, let's go that way.

Let's implement this kind of performance appraisal.

Let's run the employee survey this way.

Let's have a talent development system of this kind.

And so on.

So there must have been a decision.

And of course, these groups were working on the concepts.

They probably have invested much time and effort and energy to make things happen, to roll things out, to implement.

And, yeah, the problem is that, don't want to be too negative here,

but especially in HR, what we very often see is that things don't work as they are supposed to work.

and this has a reason

and the reason lies not only in the concept itself in the solution itself

but also in the way how these solutions were generated and implemented and what I would like to do now is

I would like to share with you some common or major pitfalls

and what I'm going to share with you in the upcoming minutes is something

that I have observed over and over and over again.

I would even say that me myself,

I have tapped in those pitfalls as many HR professionals or HR executives did or do.

So it's the same to me.

And I would even say that probably I will fall in these pitfalls again in my life.

So it's better to know these pitfalls and let me now walk through this stepwise.

It's important because you will better understand why a different approach in building an HR strategy makes so much sense.

So let me start with the first pitfall.

I would name it Inside -out thinking.

Inside -out thinking.

What is inside?

What is outside?

From an HR perspective,

inside is the HR organization or the HR department or a project team that deals with an HR related topic.

Okay, so how does that work?

Very often in organization there is the idea, well, okay, now let's do something.

Let's have an employer brand, whatever that is.

And then there will be a project team.

And the project team will have a workshop.

And in the workshop, the project team thinks about, okay, let's do an employer brand, build an employer brand.

Okay, what will we do?

How will we do this?

And they create this with much dedication, much effort and love to what they do, really.

Full motivation, let's assume this soak.

And once the concept is finished, or to be more precise,

once a senior executive has approved it, it will be rolled out.

And that's the problem.

Why is that a problem?

Because up to this point you might not have spoken to any employee,

to any supervisor who might be affected by your HR concept.

Let's assume you want to create a new performance appraisal system.

Well, a system where you want that the people agree on annual goals

and where people get an annual feedback and where the people are evaluated

or reviewed based on whether or not they have achieved the objectives agreed.

That's the system.

The CEO likes it, so you go ahead and you roll it out.

You communicate it to the people, you train the people, you translate your concept into reality.

From the inside, the project team, into the outside, into the business line.

That's inside out.

What happens very often is that there might be some resistance,

it might not work as expected because we have had wrong assumptions maybe.

So what very often happens in reality then is that we start doing change management.

Change management means we do everything to overcome the people's resistance.

So we communicate, we train, we We try to convince, we tell the managers, look, this is something good that will help you,

believe us, and so on.

We involve them maybe later on in the implementation.

That's not a good idea, really.

Inside -out thinking.

You better think outside -in, always starting with the people in your organization.

Here is a little trick once you have created even a

very simple idea of a concept an HR related concept take the idea,

pick some folks pick some people in your organization and share your idea with them say okay, do you like it? do you even understand it?

they must not necessarily like it from scratch but this response is essential Absolutely essential.

Okay, so that's pitfall number one.

Now let's move on to pitfall number two.

I would simply name it complicatedness.

complicatedness you know the thing with HR is that the major players in HR,

I mean those people who really have to do something are primarily managers employees and those managers and these employees,

they have their regular work, they have their regular profession, they deal with real problems each and every day.

The truck driver, the purchaser, the engineer, the project lead.

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And it's not the case that they woke up in the morning

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and the first thing they think of is how might a performance abrasive system work well.

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This is not their field.

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Really not.

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And most employees, most managers aren't psychologists.

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They have never studied anything around business.

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They never did.

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They deal with real things, to put it that way, right?

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So, in other words, what I believe really in is if things are not easy to be understood in HR,

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they probably won't work.

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Really.

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Things in HR must be simple.

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This is something I always tell my students in the Bachelor courses, because these students sometimes worry,

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will I understand the subject of this particular matter?

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And I tell them, well, you know, HR is simple.

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HR, in large parts at least, is simple and it must be simple because otherwise these things don't work.

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I mean, that's different in finance.

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That's different in legal.

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It's different in technology.

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But in HR, things must be simple.

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And, you know, when I look into what some companies do in HR,

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I will find a complicated machine of interrelated concepts.

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Just to give you a little bit of an impression.

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We have competency models.

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And these competency models are related to job architecture.

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And the job architecture as such is related to HR planning.

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And the competencies model are linked with behavioral anchors, which then are related to job descriptions which include job profiles.

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These are the basis for doing job evaluation, which determines remuneration.

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But also, when we have job description, we do some job planning, job posting, we do HR marketing,

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and then we select the people through various measures like interviews, testing, assessment centers.

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We have objective setting.

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We have performance evaluation, which is all part of maybe a performance appraisal.

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We have something like a talent review that is linked to 360 degree feedback, which is linked to development programs, which is linked to succession planning.

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And the development programs are linked to career path.

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And all this is part of maybe of a career planning.

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And one part of this might be expatriation or training of the job, on the job.

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We have competence assessment.

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We have personal deployment planning.

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We have all those things and all this is built on a massive HR information system.

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And we add some KPIs, key performance indicators to this.

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So I have so many things here.

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And how should anybody understand all these things?

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And of course, in the last few decades, I would say, in HR, we created one concept after another.

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and we assume that things become more professional this way.

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And now HR is really rich, rich of concepts and solutions and whatsoever.

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But the point is, if things get too complicated,

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the things themselves stand in the way to be successful.

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And that might be a problem.

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I would wish that HR becomes less complicated and more simple.

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It must be understood by the actual players to succeed.

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And then a third pitfall.

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Well, when you are, let's say, an HR executive, and I ask you,

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listen, what is really important in your organization when it comes to people?

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What is really important?

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Probability is high that you get a very, very long list.

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Diversity is important.

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Satisfaction is important.

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Selecting the right people is important.

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Learning is important.

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Development is important.

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Retention is important.

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And this can go on and on and on.

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Yeah, but you know, once everything is important, nothing is important.

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So the question is not what is important.

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The question is what is really critical for the business success.

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What is really critical?

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What are the things that really make a difference?

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That's a key question.

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So the pitfall number three here is what I would name lacking focus.

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We must be focused.

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Okay, that was the third pitfall.

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Now let's talk about the fourth pitfall.

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I have a question which in the first place sounds simple,

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but very often turns out to be very difficult to be answered.

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So this question goes to HR executives or as we name them today CHRO or CPOC,

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Chief People Officer or whatever.

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And the question simply is, okay, Mrs. CHRO, Mr. CHRO,

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what is your HR strategy?

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And, you know, when you ask this, you very often get a response like,

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well, our strategy is to hiring the right people,

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develop the people and retain the people.

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Yes.

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Okay.

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Well, that's an old dated definition of HR itself.

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That's not a strategy.

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It's really not.

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Also, when you hear a strategic statement like,

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we want that the people leverage their talent.

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Yeah, okay. Is that a strategy?

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I would say no. Why?

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This is the fourth pitfall.

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And here is a sentence I learned which is in my eyes so essential.

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So I read it slowly so that you get it.

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A strategic statement can only be strong if the opposite could make sense as well.

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So I give you an example, okay?

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I give you an example of a strategic statement, a good strategic statement.

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And this example is taken from the field of talent development.

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Or we could say from development.

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You know, development is about the long -term career, the long -term learning, the long -term growth booth of employees.

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So it could be that a company wants to do something in that field about development.

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So here is one strategic statement a company might follow or define.

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And this statement goes like this.

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As a company, we have a responsibility to develop our most talented people.

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That's the statement.

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We as a company are responsible for developing our most talented people.

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So you might think, okay, so what do you want to say?

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Okay, here's the other statement.

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The responsibility for the development of our employees lies with the employees themselves.

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We enable them for this where necessary and where desired.

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You see the difference?

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So in the first statement, there is a clear message that the company is responsible for the development of the people.

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In the second statement, it's different.

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With the second statement, the people themselves are responsible for the development.

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So in your company, you listen, in your company, who is responsible for your development?

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Is it you yourself, you employee, are you yourself responsible for your long -term development?

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Or is your company responsible?

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Who has the responsibility for long -term development?

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And this is not an easy -to -be -answered question.

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Okay?

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So this is what I mean when saying a strategic statement can only be strong

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if the opposite could make sense as well.

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okay so this pitfall is about arbitrary strategies you should not be arbitrary you should be clear

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and a decision a decision upon whether to go in this direction

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or in the other direction must be a tough one because both sides make sense okay so here is the next Next,

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pitfall, copying from others.

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This is something that we find all too often, especially in the HR community.

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So an HR executive attends, let's say, an HR conference.

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And it's attending a series of presentations where other companies present their solution.

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And what we do very often is we copy a solution from another company

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that we like for some implicit or explicit reasons.

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And we try to implement it into our own company.

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This is copy and paste, so to speak.

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Sometimes we name this also benchmark, even though benchmark means something different.

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And this has a reason why this happens so often.

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When you look into mid -sized companies and you look at the HR executive,

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these HR executives very often are very lonely people.

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Lonely people.

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They very often have nobody to share their thoughts with.

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That is different in sales, that's different in R &D.

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But in HR you very often have the head of HR who is pretty much alone.

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He or she might have an executive board or a CEO above him or her, but nobody on left and right.

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Of course, a team underneath, of course.

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But you have to make decisions upon concepts and you are alone.

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So you are uncertain and uncertainty might be reduced by simply copying something that worked elsewhere.

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So I can really understand this.

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But probability is extremely high that once you copy something from another company

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that it won't work in the same way in your own company.

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And why is that?

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Because you are different.

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Because you have a different structural or cultural context in your company.

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I promise you.

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Are we going to talk about context in one of the upcoming episodes?

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You only can copy something when you really can assume the conditions are the same.

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And they rarely are, okay?

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So here comes my last idea, the last pitfall I want to share with you.

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And this one I like the most, I must say.

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I simply name it focusing on solutions.

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Solutions.

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Well, that does not sound too bad in the first place, right?

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I mean, focusing on solutions is good, isn't it?

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Being solution -oriented, isn't that good?

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Always have a solution in mind.

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You better have a solution in mind quickly.

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That's very often our thinking, but it's exactly wrong.

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It's really the wrong thing to do.

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So how does that look like in many organizations?

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Somebody in your organization has the idea to implement something, right?

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Let's say an employee survey, right?

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That's a solution.

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Somebody says, hey, why shouldn't we do an employee survey?

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And then the others in the executive thought, why should we do this?

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Well, isn't it good to ask the people whether or not they are satisfied with their work, with collaboration, with leadership?

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And once we understand whether they are satisfied or not, we can conclude where improvements might be necessary or not.

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And then they discuss and then you agree, well, yeah, cool solution.

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That's something we really should do.

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Okay, fine.

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Then, once the solution is decided, you set up a project team, of course, and the project team is there to think about the design of this solution.

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OK, how many times do you want to do this?

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How many questions do we want to ask?

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What kind of questions?

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Are they this kind of question or that kind of question?

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Who will get a report?

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When do we get the report?

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Who is allowed to participate?

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So this is all about the operational design, the question of how we do the solution, how the solution might look like.

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Okay, once the solution is designed, we roll it out.

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And then things very often clash with the real context.

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And that's a common experience we have in HR, that the idea that we have created, the concept that we have created, the solution that we have created,

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does not lead to applause, standing ovation in the business line.

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No, the opposite very often happens.

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And the people say, really?

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Employee survey?

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Why is that?

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Why should we do this?

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Bad idea.

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And some others will like it, of course.

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But it's very often a mixed situation.

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It could be that something does not really work out.

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I mean primarily because of the inside out thinking as I've mentioned before.

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Okay, so still you do the employee survey over and over and over again, maybe one year, second year,

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third year, and then somebody shows up and asks, hey, this employee survey, is there anybody who could tell me why we are doing this?

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I mean, what's the problem?

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What's the problem?

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If this is the solution, what is the problem?

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And that applies for many things like, okay, hey, we do this 360 degree feedback all the time.

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I mean, it's costly.

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But what is the problem?

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What is the problem that you want to solve with this particular solution?

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Does that anybody, could anybody tell me that?

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And then you think, well, smart question, we better think about.

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So, we start with a solution or...

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let me say we fall in love with the solution, then we think about the design,

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then things clash very often with the context and later on we ask ourselves, well, what is the problem?

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and what I will propose

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also in this entire series and this is a mantra of mine is

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that you can have these different steps but please in a different sequence, okay?

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You always start with a problem.

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Whatever you do in HR you have to start with a problem.

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What is the problem?

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Who has the problem?

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Once you understand the problem you do not think about solution.

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Please do not.

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It's wrong.

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It's risky at least.

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Okay?

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The first thing you do after you have understood the problem is you have to understand the context.

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How is your organization in terms of structure, culture?

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That's essential.

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We're going to talk about this very intensively.

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You have to understand the nature of the organization.

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Once you have understood both the problem and the context,

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you might think about an appropriate solution that not only addresses the problem but also fits to the context.

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Okay, once you have agreed on a certain solution, then you might think about the adequate design.

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Okay?

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So, same steps but different sequence.

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We do not start with a solution.

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We are not solution -focused.

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We start with a problem, then the context, then the solution, and then the design.

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This is what I propose.

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To sum it up, we talked about six different pitfalls.

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The first one was inside -out thinking.

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The second one was complicatedness.

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Better be simple.

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As simple as possible so that things work.

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The third one was lacking focus.

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If everything is important, nothing is important.

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So better be focused on a few things that are critical.

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Arbitrary strategy.

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Have strategic statements where also the opposite could make sense.

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Okay?

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There we were talking about copying from others, benchmarking, using benchmarks.

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That's risky.

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Things might not work in the same way in your own organization.

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And the last point was the HR typical tendency, maybe, to focus on solutions first, which you should not do.

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So, these are the six pitfalls.

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I hope you took something home from this.

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Thanks for listening, and see you in the next episode.

शैडोइंग तकनीक क्या है?

शैडोइंग (Shadowing) एक विज्ञान-समर्थित भाषा सीखने की तकनीक है जो मूल रूप से पेशेवर दुभाषिया प्रशिक्षण के लिए विकसित की गई थी। विधि सरल लेकिन शक्तिशाली है: आप मूल अंग्रेज़ी ऑडियो सुनते हैं और तुरंत इसे ज़ोर से दोहराते हैं — जैसे वक्ता की छाया 1-2 सेकंड की देरी से। शोध से पता चलता है कि यह उच्चारण सटीकता, स्वर, लय, जुड़ी हुई ध्वनियाँ, सुनने की समझ और बोलने की प्रवाहशीलता में काफ़ी सुधार करता है।

शैडोइंग अभ्यास: #02 Common Pitfalls of building Human Resources Strategies - वीडियो के साथ अंग्रेजी बोलना सीखें

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