Accountabilities and responsibilities go hand in hand. However, I think that there is a fine line of distinction between the two. Accountabilities are the tasks performed by a person out of his job profile, and responsibilities are obligations for which he is accountable. This distinct line of difference is experienced between Project Management and Human Resource Management roles too.
Project Management includes developing a vision, taking proactive decisions and understanding the diversity in training. Project management is a discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources for a specific task and brings about its completion with Excellency, while human resources management concentrates on integrating decisions about people with decisions about the results an organization is trying to obtain. HR’s primary roles have been to ensure compliance with laws, rules, and regulations. Although this is still, and will always be, a necessary function, many recent developments have led to a strong emphasis on results. Even the organizational initiatives these days demonstrate the value of human resources management
With the trend of more and more HR executives beginning to earn a seat at the management table, HR is becoming more of counseling and involved in day-to-day management activities. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go if HR is to become a strategic partner at all levels.
Lack of strategic partnerships is one of the reasons why so many organizational development initiatives fail. Through organizational initiatives, HR tries building its own internal competencies to deal with organizational issues, educate itself on program missions, and find ways to offer creative and innovative solutions to organization wide issues, than going on a standard approach of executing their responsibilities.
In the rush for creativity and innovation, the most critical piece, to take into account how change affects the organization's people, is often forgotten. Studies show that nearly 75 percent of all organizational change programmes fail because they don't create the necessary grounds well of support among employees.
Most often, the change brought in by the initiatives, is not welcomed immediately. Processes, Technology and People are the 3 key elements which drive and are affected by the initiatives. People are the most important of these elements, as change distracts and disturbs the balance of human brains. From the outset of any initiative, people must recognise and buy into the need for change. This is where HRM should take help of the Project Management Leaders and recognize that an organization cannot successfully adopt change unless these leaders understand, support the reasons for creating the change, align their people to create a compelling vision of the future state and continually communicate it.
While implementing the changes, HRM can also borrow a leaf from Project management, to identify and engage the resources for executing the change. A strategy should be developed in conjunction with the people who are impacted and the ones who will be executing it. This will enable the work force to be well prepared to participate in the development and implementation of new processes and technology, and the implementation should essentially be a monitoring activity for leaders.
However, most organizations spend the majority of their time in mandating the implementation of the change and don't adequately address their people's role in change. In such instances, successful change adoption rarely occurs. Project managers, functional and non-functional should be held responsible for reiterating the change mission through ongoing communications. Management should also use E-mails, project milestone commemorations, conversations and other channels consistently to remind people why they are expending their hard work on implementing a change.
Project Management includes developing a vision, taking proactive decisions and understanding the diversity in training. Project management is a discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources for a specific task and brings about its completion with Excellency, while human resources management concentrates on integrating decisions about people with decisions about the results an organization is trying to obtain. HR’s primary roles have been to ensure compliance with laws, rules, and regulations. Although this is still, and will always be, a necessary function, many recent developments have led to a strong emphasis on results. Even the organizational initiatives these days demonstrate the value of human resources management
With the trend of more and more HR executives beginning to earn a seat at the management table, HR is becoming more of counseling and involved in day-to-day management activities. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go if HR is to become a strategic partner at all levels.
Lack of strategic partnerships is one of the reasons why so many organizational development initiatives fail. Through organizational initiatives, HR tries building its own internal competencies to deal with organizational issues, educate itself on program missions, and find ways to offer creative and innovative solutions to organization wide issues, than going on a standard approach of executing their responsibilities.
In the rush for creativity and innovation, the most critical piece, to take into account how change affects the organization's people, is often forgotten. Studies show that nearly 75 percent of all organizational change programmes fail because they don't create the necessary grounds well of support among employees.
Most often, the change brought in by the initiatives, is not welcomed immediately. Processes, Technology and People are the 3 key elements which drive and are affected by the initiatives. People are the most important of these elements, as change distracts and disturbs the balance of human brains. From the outset of any initiative, people must recognise and buy into the need for change. This is where HRM should take help of the Project Management Leaders and recognize that an organization cannot successfully adopt change unless these leaders understand, support the reasons for creating the change, align their people to create a compelling vision of the future state and continually communicate it.
While implementing the changes, HRM can also borrow a leaf from Project management, to identify and engage the resources for executing the change. A strategy should be developed in conjunction with the people who are impacted and the ones who will be executing it. This will enable the work force to be well prepared to participate in the development and implementation of new processes and technology, and the implementation should essentially be a monitoring activity for leaders.
However, most organizations spend the majority of their time in mandating the implementation of the change and don't adequately address their people's role in change. In such instances, successful change adoption rarely occurs. Project managers, functional and non-functional should be held responsible for reiterating the change mission through ongoing communications. Management should also use E-mails, project milestone commemorations, conversations and other channels consistently to remind people why they are expending their hard work on implementing a change.
Another lovely post after an almost 3-month wait! :)
ReplyDeleteMost of the times, whenever a change or new initiative is introduced in an organization, it is criticized by the employees, especially if it involves them doing more work than they did earlier :) But like you said, if the reason for the change is communicated to them, and they know why they are doing what they are doing, the employees will be more willing to contribute and put in that extra effort, especially if they know how their efforts will be in turn contributing to the growth of the organization.
Yes! Communication from Organization's Management is key. At the same time, ownership on part of the Project Managers and the collaboration between HRM and PM is equally important.
ReplyDeleteholimonth(s) again is it? expecting something wonderful (as always) on the anniversary! :)
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