The HR Value Proposition: Convincing Line Managers to Partner More Effectively with Human Resources

Discover how HR practitioners can describe the HR Value Proposition to their operational client managers to foster a more  proactive working relationship.

As a career HR executive and HR business partner, I’ve found that in every organization where I’ve worked, certain operational leaders and department heads typically avoided HR whenever possible. They were dead set on running their department or division their own way without external interference from the organization’s HR team. Needless to say, it took a lot of time and effort to build trust with and win over such stalwart “anti-HR” operational leaders, but they were my clients, and I had to find a way to help them see the value that I/HR brought to the table. I found that a casual storytelling style with insightful lessons that were practical, relatable, and in their best interests was always the best place to start when it came to demonstrating the HR value proposition.

The script that follows below loosely comes from my bestselling book, “101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees.” This particular script, however, is intended for my HR colleagues who have similar challenges to the ones I experienced in convincing manager-clients to partner with me and my team. The content below has been created as a one-on-one discussion, but it can easily be turned into a lunch-n-learn for a broader group audience. Customize this and make it your own, but see if the core talking points below resonate with your operational clients as they did with mine over the years.

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Your opening discussion with a line manager or senior executive who tends to shy away from getting HR involved in their business activities might sound like this:

Keisha, as an effective leader in any organization, it’s important for you to understand the importance of maximizing your relationship with the company’s human resources team. After all, when done right, HR can be an incredible resource—both for strategic partnering on people and performance issues as well as for timely discussions about what's keeping you up at night when it comes to individual and team productivity or how people treat one another. Even so, when viewed the wrong way, HR can represent yet another barrier to getting things done the way you want. It’s important, as a result, that you establish a relationship with HR that can help you better manage your employees and support you through some of the trickier situations that might come your way.

Since HR is a common specialization or concentration within MBA programs, you should understand that the HR discipline, broadly speaking, is about managing and motivating people and maximizing employee productivity. As such, HR supports the portable management and leadership skills that need to be explored and honed throughout your career. What many managers fail to realize is that working with and through HR can significantly mitigate or even eliminate their personal liability in certain situations. I want to share three points with you that may be new to you but that are important for your own career and professional development, if you'll allow me. . .

POINT 1: HR IS ON THE FRONT LINE BY YOUR SIDE

First, Keisha, for HR to be effective, we have to be on the front end of employee interventions. Line managers greatly appreciate when they can go to HR for guidance and support in handling potentially adverse or hostile employment situations, and managers find a true ally who will partner with them and have their backs. On the flip side, nothing is more frustrating to HR than having to fix a people problem once it’s reached a crisis point. HR’s purpose in our organization is to support management in making the best people decisions for the company as possible. Does that make sense? [Sure.]

One area where HR can provide you with invaluable support is in the employee relations arena. Managers hate having to discipline or terminate staff members or engage in tough conversations or the “progressive discipline” steps that precede a termination for cause. As a result, it’s not uncommon for managers to delay the inevitable with underperforming employees and look the other way in order to avoid confrontation, hoping that performance or conduct problems will simply fix themselves. As is usually the case, though, problems continue to build until some proverbial “final straw” breaks the camel’s back, and then managers explode into crisis mode and want the employee fired immediately. Way too much drama!

Keep in mind that HR doesn’t want to be seen as an obstacle to management. In fact, you could argue that one of HR’s key responsibilities lies in insulating managers and companies from employment-related liability. For example, when HR first learns of a manager’s desire to fire someone at that crisis point, its only recourse is  to examine the case’s merit from a legal standpoint. It starts by pulling the employee’s personnel file to see what kind of employment record exists. More often than not, HR finds little, if any, progressive discipline (that is, written and final written warnings) that can help justify a termination for cause. Performance review scores tend to be inflated as well. Can you imagine that happening? [Definitely.]

When that’s the case, HR has no choice but to deny the termination request because the manager didn’t do their job and there’s no paper record to justify the separation request. The only solution that HR can offer at that point is to begin the progressive discipline process from scratch by composing a first written warning. Unfortunately, that makes HR appear to be the “red tape” machine that stops you from taking the action steps you feel are necessary and warranted to keep your operation running smoothly. (That’s also when you hear, “HR won’t let us terminate anyone around here.”) It makes me the bad guy, standing in your way of getting things done the way you want them, and that's not a role I want to play. How much easier it would have been if HR had been involved earlier in the process: With prior warnings documented and substandard annual performance reviews on file, this “final incident” that escalated the situation to a crisis point could have indeed justified a clean termination decision with minimal fear of legal recourse. Do you follow the progression here? [Yes.]

POINT 2: HR CAN INSULATE YOU FROM PERSONAL LIABILITY

Great. Then let me get to my second point. You should never inadvertently take on personal liability for issues that occur in the workplace. They don’t pay you enough to shoulder responsibility that could jeopardize your home or savings. It’s a little-known fact that in many states, managers found guilty of unlawful employment decisions can be personally penalized up to $50,000 for engaging in what are known as “managerial bad acts” (i.e., “acting outside the course and scope of their managerial authority”). In fact, in some states like California, there’s no limit to how much a manager can be personally liable for. Were you aware of that? [No: that’s news to me.]

The best way to insulate yourself from potential charges of personal liability lies in getting the hot potato off your lap and passed on to someone else’s. The best way to do that is by having everything blessed by HR first, before taking any type of potentially adverse action, like termination, against one of your employees. In other words, if you partner with HR on the front end, you’ll not only get the guidance you need to turn the situation around and support your team member, but you’ll also be deemed to be acting “within the course and scope of your managerial authority.” That means you followed lawful, documented policy and gained appropriate internal approvals on personnel decisions before taking any action, supporting the argument that you were acting as an agent of the company. This can reduce the chance a plaintiff successfully argues that you acted outside the company’s authority, which might otherwise open the door to personal claims against you.

Remember something else: Employees are sophisticated consumers and often realize that the best way to protect themselves from managers’ complaints about their individual performance is to strike first by filing complaints about their managers’ conduct. Read that: They’ll come to HR first to file a complaint about your conduct before you have a chance to complain to HR about their performance. They assume that if they file their complaint against you first, then any negative action taken by the company against them could be interpreted as retaliation. We call it the “preemptive strike of pretaliation,” so your getting to HR first in terms of timing is critical to protect yourself and the organization. Does that make sense as well? [Yes, I never thought of that.]

One in four managers in corporate America will be involved in employment-related litigation at some point in their career, so it’s important that you remain aware of potential pitfalls that might blindside an otherwise unsuspecting manager. That’s why I want to make sure that you’re erring on the side of caution and overcommunicating with HR regarding potential employee challenges. I don’t want to inadvertently find you or our company on the sharp end of a lawsuit’s spear. In other words, it’s important that you know when to run, not walk, to HR. Are you okay with my logic here? [Yes.]

Great! And that’s why you should immediately come to HR or notify me when you suspect there’s a performance problem or if you’re going to deliver bad news to one of your team members. HR needs to be in the loop in case an employee feels like they’re vulnerable and might try to launch a “preemptive strike” against you, their supervisor, by filing a complaint with HR or with a government agency about your conduct, using terms like harassment, discrimination, or retaliation.

Timing is everything in matters like these: If you get to HR first, then HR deals with an employee performance problem; if the employee gets to HR first, then HR deals with an internal investigation against a manager’s potentially inappropriate conduct. That’s how you might find yourself the target of an investigation that you feel is unwarranted. Accountability is key, and you and I have to be close partners from this point on. Keep in mind that you wouldn’t be the first manager in history to step on a landmine due to a lack of awareness about the dreaded preemptive strike of “pretaliation.” Can you see my logic here? [Yes.]

Likewise, keep in mind that when an employee goes to see a plaintiff’s attorney, the first question the lawyer will typically ask before deciding to take on a case is, “Did they ever put anything in writing?” (about the individual’s substandard performance or inappropriate workplace conduct).  If the answer is , “Yes, I received multiple documented warnings,” the attorney likely won’t take that case on because they work on contingency—meaning they only make money if they win—and trying to legally challenge a company’s disciplinary documents is hard work that may result in little if any damage awards. If the answer is, “No—I never received anything in writing from my company in terms of substandard performance reviews or disciplinary measures,” then a lawyer will likely be much more inclined to accept the case because it’s more he said—she said in nature. Logical? [Yes]

Good. Finally, keep in mind that in the litigation arena, judges and arbitrators are not simply looking at the company’s employee handbook and policy and procedure manual to determine if the organization made the right decision in terminating someone's employment, for example. Instead, they’ll look to the organization’s “past practices” to ensure that we’ve handled similar situations the same way for others. However, by definition, you can’t know what our organization’s past practices have been.  HR  doesn’t share that with operational managers for privacy reasons. Terminations for cause and investigation results are typically kept confidential for that reason. However, by plugging into HR—the “mother ship” in this instance—you’re ensuring that our company can defend itself based on employee handbook language and past practices. That’s why managers aren’t permitted to terminate without getting HR’s approval first—managers simply have no way of ensuring that past practices are being consistently followed.  How am I doing so far? [I get it: I never looked at things this way before.) 

POINT 3: DON’T WALK ALONE

Great. I’m glad this is resonating with you. In my experience, sometimes line managers avoid HR like the plague. But that’s not how you’ll want to partner with HR here at our company. The old mantra “Keep it inside the family” is still alive and well in corporate America, especially since many managers believe that it's better to go it alone and if they can’t handle a problem in their group themselves, they’ll be perceived as weak. Nonsense! Leadership is a team sport. As an operational line manager (department/division head), you need support in resolving people issues and maximizing staff performance. Your partnership with HR, when built on trust, will provide  you with key strategic  advantages to insulate you and our company from charges and challenges that might otherwise miss awareness in the employment litigation arena. Are we on the same page? [I think so. I appreciate your taking the time to explain this all to me.]

Wonderful! I appreciate your support with this, and it’s an important enough matter that I wanted to share my insights with you to build your awareness in this space and help you better understand what happens behind the “HR curtain.” Partner with me any time you need help, keep me in the loop, and encourage your employees to meet with me or with a member of my HR team if they ever have any concerns. My job is to have your back, plain and simple. And just to be clear, your employees don’t need to stay within the “chain of command,” so to speak, when they have an issue. Sure, you can ask them to speak with you first when issues arise, but if they're not comfortable for any reason, encourage them to speak with your boss and/or with HR any time. Full transparency is an important concept in my world and something that you’ll want to make part of your leadership brand.

It’s no harm, no foul if people want to speak with HR before speaking with you. We don’t lead from fear; we lead from transparency and honesty. And that avoids people complaining, "I feared retaliation for going to HR or to my boss's boss, so I said nothing until I spoke with my lawyer." See the logic here? [Yes.] Great. That's why it's so important for all leaders in our organization to know how to maximize the HR resource whenever it's needed. Thanks for meeting with me about this, and please reach out any time if there's anything I could help with or support you with.

The HR Value Proposition

Well done! You just taught your manager-client an important lesson about HR’s role that’s in both their and the company’s best interests. A simple message of “HR is your partner, and there’s nothing to be afraid of” is a critical learning step for any leader. Mapping out these specific benefits significantly helps in making HR a trusted partner and go-to resource, especially before signs of trouble surface.

For similar “tough conversations” to have with your clients, subordinates, or your manager, feel free to access “101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees,” Paul’s flagship book on effective leadership communication. It’s sold over 100,000 copies and has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Turkish. It's likewise ranked as a #1 Amazon bestseller in multiple categories, including: “Human Resources Management,” “Business Mentoring and Coaching,” “Business Conflict Resolution & Mediation,” “Best Business Teams,” “Best Workplace Culture,” and “Business Decision-Making and Problem Solving.”

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