Relationship_infographic_icons_m_698x400Come on now, you have to admit, Human Resources sounds a bit sterile. At a glance, when we think of resources, many will think of money before human beings. When we think of people, we often think about relationships, development, and coaching.

HR is responsible for a number of areas such as employee benefits, corporate culture, recruitment, training, etc. With that said, is HR is in the business of building healthy relationships? Some HR departments are fully engaged in relationship building and some do a fantastic job, others, not so much.

Some years ago I was reviewing my 401k investments and I notice that just about all of the 20 or so funds within the company’s investment program were performing poorly. I was pretty sure that I did not interpret the charts wrong. The charts looked Sesame Street simple, an ascending green line is good, a descending red line is bad. A few of the leaders confirmed and affirmed my findings. All of us had big concerns about our portfolios. During this time there are roughly 8000 funds within the market and many were high performers.

How did HR miss the mark in measuring the performance of our portfolio of funds?

As a team and as individuals, we had a solid relationship with HR so we decided to take action. We arranged a meeting to discuss providing more investment options for the company. HR was open to the idea, a plan was drawn and executed. Our HR department failed in measuring the performance of the company’s portfolio but responded well to the challenge of fixing the problem.

5 points in building healthy relationships:

  1. Don’t just complain… if you improve how you think you will change the world around you
  2. Take the initiative to ask questions and have the intestinal fortitude to jump-start crucial conversations
  3. Challenge the status quo respectfully and bring solutions to the table
  4. Secure leaders periodically invite HR to their staff meetings to observe culture
  5. Every leader should act as an extension of the HR department. Great leaders are always seeking to build new bridges to extend communication channels

From the Department of Human Resources —–>To  the Department of Healthy Relationships

“Every issue belief attitude or assumption is precisely the issue that stands between you and your relationship to another human being; and between you and your self.”

– Unknown