Managers – stop making it all about you! Part 1

Now with a title like that, this blog could cover a myriad of topics, hence it being the first of a series.

Today I’m writing about the selfish road of HR compliance. Don’t get me wrong, compliance is a critical part of business. We must keep our businesses in order so we can protect our assets.

However, too often I see business owners and managers tick the HR compliance box (or at least they think they have) and give themselves a pat on the back that they are great people managers and HR is covered.

How selfish can you be? What I see is that you are protected and that is all that matters! That is not HR, that’s not management, and it’s certainly not leadership!

That is risk mitigation. It’s important and should form part of your business management strategy, but it is not people management. Just because you are protected from your employees making a claim against you doesn’t mean you are managing your HR.

You are not investing in your human capital, you are covering your butt!

Most people I know have an array of insurances; life, health, car, property, rental, travel and income … the list goes on. I write this blog as I do my morning walk (it’s a multi-tasking day) and I see lots of people running, practicing yoga and meditating. I see cars driving under the speed limit, stopping at red lights, people locking their front doors as they leave their house and even doing a little maintenance in the yard on the way to their car. While they are insured if something goes wrong, they are protecting themselves and reducing the chances of something going wrong in the first place rather than waiting to use the often inadequate insurance safety net they have in place.

These people are putting time and energy into the assets that matter. They want to perform at their best and are proactively looking after their bodies, their cars and their homes.

Yet lately I am hearing a lot of people tell me that they don’t need to hear about HR because they have it all covered. They have ‘people’ insurance! If someone makes a claim against them they are protected and will be okay.

Great! Good for YOU. But, guess what – HR and leadership is not about you! It is about giving to your people, investing and making them the best they can be so together you can build great companies.

I can assure you I don’t sit back and let my health deteriorate because I have insurance. That would be ridiculous. So why do companies take the easy option and cover their backsides, thinking that’s all they need to do in HR?

What about creating a business that will never need to use that insurance (unless in very rare cases). Be proactive rather than reactive. Even better, why don’t we think about our people like our bodies and want to make them the best they can be?

We should want to invest time, money and development into our people, so they can perform at their best for themselves and for the business.

Be compliant and be insured but don’t think for one minute that this is your HR box ticked. You are not even scraping the surface.

Sue-Ellen Watts is the founder and director of  wattsnext, specialists in HR, recruitment, compliance and people performance.