Contracting for HR
Resources are always limited; you can’t do everything. The process of working out what you can and will commit to do is core to any function’s credibility. Within HR in particular, it also provides the opportunity to explain the options that are available: for example, the difference between being weighed down with transactional work rather than adding value at a higher level.
Therefore, it can be a wide-ranging discussion about how HR partner with their stakeholder or client group, as well as the projects they will undertake.
‘Contracting’ as a term is most often applied to external consultants or suppliers. Peter Block’s book ‘Flawless Consulting’ is a useful resource for this. Here, we take ideas from various sources in order to build a list of actions and considerations to bear in mind, and for both parties to explore and share:
Contracting checklist for HR
- The person and their role
- How much do you know about each other as people?
- What particular skills do each of you offer?
- How clear are you about each other’s roles and function or areas?
- What are the functional priorities and goals for each of you?
- The organisation and where this activity fits within it
- Whatever the project or piece of work that you are seeking to clarify between you, how well do you understand where it fits into the wider organisation?
- How clear are each of you about what you need to contribute, from your role perspective?
- What factors are there in the internal political landscape that may have an impact on what you achieve?
- Who should you get on board?
- Who else can help you, by providing skill, expertise, or connections?
- How you work together
- How well does the relationship between you work?
- Should you take a step back to look at that first, before you start planning?
- What is the level of trust between you?
- How will you communicate going forward, with each other and with other stakeholders?
- How can you ensure that you feel comfortable sharing any concerns?
- How you manage the project
- How clear are the stages in this project or activity?
- How will it progress?
- When and how will you measure, from both sides, how you are doing?
- Agree goals, milestones, check-in points and reporting upwards.
- Agreeing commitments and managing expectations
- What do each of you commit to doing?
- What will you not commit to?
- Where are the gaps, and how will you manage those?
- What are the risks or obstacles that you foresee?
- Embedding or handing over
- This applies in particular to HR initiatives, where a new process, eg. performance management or absence management, is handed over to line management. The aim here is often to make this process or project ‘business as usual’ going forward, and to consolidate it into regular routines that are owned by the client group.
- How clear are each of you about how this will work? How clear is the accountability, and the longer term implications?
- Results and recognition
- What will be the benefits, or reward, for each of you?
- How will you attribute the credit of your achievements?
- Who else needs to know what you have achieved?
While this list is not exclusive, and contracting conversations vary widely, we hope that it will help you to take into account many aspects that will help your project to be successful both in terms of the results, and of the relationship.
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