Don't avoid the elephant in the room

Transforming the HR function is not a simple process, not least because success means really dealing with the issues concerning the way different roles in the HR function interact i.e. How do HR employees work together to add value in a process and how do they working together to add value across processes (the more important challenge I think)?

If you are looking for a potential mine field you've found one here.

HR employees are not used to looking at their roles and the way their roles interact and what that means for the way they do work. This means that there is often a real risk that processes fail to provide the value that they were designed to provide simply because the processes don't work as well as it should within the HR function.

So what can you do to avoid this problem? The first thing is to realise that no one is good at implementing the final stages of change within their own organisations. It just gets too personal; so don't beat yourself up if you are having difficulties here.

The second thing is to deal with the sensitive stuff as early on in the change process as possible. Don't wait to the last minute to deal with the areas that often hurt the most. HR functions often say that they think that it is difficult to talk about roles, processes and the organisation of the HR function until everything is as close to being finalised as possible. This is simply impossible. The detail is what gets you close to the final product, waiting to deal with the detail will mean that it takes you longer to get to where you want to be and in addition will make you feel that the work you have done isn't appreciated simply because people are reacting to it.

Work with "what if" scenarios. Paint a picture of how you think things will be, early on in the process, and attack the problems that may arise them and there. If you find out early that there are going to be problems and objections from staff you have time to meet the concerns and deal with problems.

Avoiding the elephant in the room is the easiest way to make a problem bigger than it was in the beginning.