Transcript for "Ask HR: Why HR Isn't Viewed as Strategic": HR is just here to hire and fire people. HR is so scary. HR is just an administrative job. As HR professionals, you know these myths couldn't be further from the truth, but they still persist shaping how people view HR's role and value. Hi. I'm Diana. And on this episode of I'm Telling HR, we're busting the worst myths about HR and setting the record straight about what you really do and why it matters. Today, I'm sitting down with industry vet, Sarah Rose Hattem, to unpack some of the most common misconceptions about HR, where they come from, and how we can shift the narrative. Sarah, I'd love to start with your take. What's the biggest myth about HR that drives you absolutely crazy, and how do you usually address it? I, yeah. I think, you know, I think a lot of people see HR as, like, the police or just an advocate for the business or something, but I I I do really think it's better defined as this business partner that advocates for employees and and really, like, best defined as a a liaison between the company and its policies and supporting individuals. I I think good HR people want to focus on investing in human capital. At the end of the day, of course, like, every business is a business. They wanna be profitable. They wanna earn revenue. They wanna be successful, but a business really can't function without without employees. So with that said, like, why do you think HR continues to battle that reputation, that perception of being paper pushers despite its critical role? Yeah. You know, it's it's an interesting question. I think about this a lot, and, actually, my mom has been in HR for her entire career, which is, like, forty years. Don't tell her. So that I love that. I love that. At her first job, she was hired as, like, the personnel gal, right, responsible for all the administrative work, for on and off boarding, for benefits. And and back then, there was, like, no tools to streamline these processes, obviously. It was really manual. There weren't as many rules. Right? The fact that she was called the personnel gal, I think, is is a a good hint there. And and I think that, obviously, now we live in 2025. There's more teams using tech to automate things. And and the reality is, I I talked to a lot of people at organizations who still think that, like, do this thing manually or they they do this because it's how we've always done it. And they they keep pushing this hyper manual process each week and each month because it's what finance or the board of execs or the owner wants to do despite having already had automated other processes or automated parts of the business. And so I think there's this huge difference from the able HR work that, like, my mom did when she started and the people ops work, people operations work that I often speak about. I think HR is a component of people operations. But people ops, when we think about it as this umbrella, it kinda breaks the mold. And and by definition, it's a little more of a strategic approach to managing all operations and services and processes related to people in an organization. And so I always joke that when I was the work I was doing was not my mom as HR because I think, again, investing in human capital strategies is something that HR people have been thinking about for all this time, but it's really only in the last fifteen to twenty years or so that I think executives and larger companies really started to adopt and accept this philosophy versus these new companies that have been established in that time. We're kinda pushing that out of the gate. I absolutely love that, and I love that origin story too. You don't hear that too often. Sarah, how can HR teams flip that script and earn a seat at the table? I mean, I think there are a lot of organizations who have HR people or teams that are just really siloed into this administrative or old school practice. And I think practitioners who want to make more of an impact just need to get in there and insert themselves as a a critical partner. Obviously, it takes time to learn a business and identify, goals that the company has and that leaders have across the business that would make an impact. So I think, obviously, you have to start with, like, investing in some sort of tech to automate a bunch of the stuff that's taking up all of your time, anything that's, like, super redundant or hyper manual, and then focus on more strategic and impactful projects that are aligned with those business goals that you went out and discovered. I think when when HR people become partners to the leaders in and help with things like recruiting or performance or retention and get involved in those, like, everyday conversations that are focused on initiatives that are gonna drive the business forward, they immediately become, like, an invaluable and strategic resource. So I think one of the most common horror stories is walking into a massive layoff scenario as an HR professional with no context. Yeah. Why is HR often excluded from these big decisions, like mergers or acquisitions, and have you experienced anything like that? It's it's so interesting because I think that HR people often are excluded from the decision, but then ultimately, like, entirely relied upon to actually execute what needs to happen in order you know, all the paperwork and, like, actually turning people, having the conversations, things like that. So I think it goes kind of back to some of the things that I talked about before related to just understanding business needs. I think one way to mitigate this is to do some sort of post mortem, some sort of post mortem even if it's for yourself, just so you can kinda think critically about the event or with these other leaders. Talk about things that worked, didn't work, ideas for being more proactive next time versus reactive. And then when you come up with those ideas, either for yourself as, like, a learning exercise or actually being bullish and kind of asserting those ideas to someone who can listen, that is the first step, I think, in being able to understand what should have gone better and then being a resource for someone who can problem solve in the future. Because when you're in the moment, you just have to get the job done. But I think if you're able to reflect and provide feedback after the fact, you then that sticks in a leader's mind as, oh, maybe I should consult Sarah, in the future. Maybe I should consult this person in the future about this type of decision. So it's I think it's baby steps. Absolutely. So then what's a common mistake that HR teams make when they're trying to build credibility with the c suite? Like, just so that they're part of these conversations, how can they avoid that? You know, I think a mistake I made in my first job as an HR manager was really trying to model model the book. Right? People's strategy was something I was developing based on everything I had read and learned about and thought was a best practice. And I sometimes admittedly would, like, push pretty hard to do something in a specific way because it was the most compliant or well, that's just the way people do it. It's by the book, you know. And and I think it created friction with my leaders who, at the time, in a series a b startup, were a little more risk tolerant than me. They were focused on this end goal and and knew we needed people off strategy, but didn't want it to be super rigid. And so when it came to things like the employee handbook or even sometimes employment classifications, they were kind of adverse to having any formal processes around that. And so, I I think it took me taking a big step back and interviewing each individual leader to understand what was important to them, what their business goals were, and using that information to make recommendations to those leaders based on what they were telling me will work for them and what they needed versus what I thought was best. And so I kinda did this, like, Venn diagram of, like, this is what the book says, this is what they're saying, how do we find something in the middle. And being able to marry their vision of what they had in mind and and my version of what I thought HR should look like or what I what I thought I wanted it to look like at the organization ended up making something that was really more authentic to the company. Even if it wasn't perfectly compliant or the most common, it was genuine to what we were doing. And I think that was actually something that was really hard for me to overcome because I I felt like I was working against the grain. I wanted to do a good job. It was like my first HR gig. But it really there was a lot of upside in making these execs feel like they were heard, and it allowed me to also get creative with some of my ideas. Absolutely. So then what role does language or branding play in how HR is perceived internally? Like, how are you lobbying for yourself internally? How do you make that shift from HR to people ops? And does that actually make a difference, or is it just BS? No. I I think it makes a huge difference. And I think even if a company won't adopt to this first, I think when you start thinking about HR and adopt that mindset of, like, okay. This traditional HR work versus people operations and start to think about, like, what that could mean for you and your business. Start asking more strategic questions, like, how can we do this more efficiently? How will this impact goals for these teams? And how does this differ from this team and that team? I think thinking that just that way of thinking and shifting how you approach the job, is really a good first step in in finding a place to be a strategic partner. In in one of my early HR jobs, that actually happened where they hired me as an HR manager, and I made a case for why this was really a lot more than just HR. It was it was people operations. I love that. So on a similar note, what's your advice for HR professionals, especially those that are bogged down with administrative tasks, whether it's onboarding or recruiting, and they wanna focus more on strategy? I think it's it's investing in technology, for for the administrative functions that are super redundant and manual. If you're spending a lot of time doing paperwork, data entry, make you know, making sure people sign documents, things like that, we need to figure out how to tighten that up. Talk to your broker. How can we streamline benefits enrollments? Maybe we need an ATS instead of a spreadsheet. Figure out ways to tighten up any of those processes that are taking up a lot of your time. And with that free time, recycle it into some of the other things that we've talked about that are a little more strategic. Yeah. Absolutely. And so then if you could rewrite the narrative around HR in one sentence, what would it be and why? HR is super important to any business, but it is just a part of this broader people operations functions. And and leaders who are not thinking about and using their HR teams as a strategic partner, I think, are really missing out on a huge opportunity to invest in their human capital. A business can't run on just an idea and be successful. It needs it needs people to drive that success. So in terms of back to the technology aspect, so how can HR teams leverage tech and data to move beyond their perception as, like, these qualitative storytellers and just start driving business strategy? I think tech obviously is a great way to streamline processes that are otherwise manual or super redundant. Right? Focus on solutions that'll give you the most ROI, that give you great analytics, monitor success that way, because when you have time back to focus on more strategic initiatives, you can be more productive in addressing business problems instead of reactive and handling kind of the mundane and redundant work that is pretty traditional in this field. So what's a TLDR? Like, what is your ultimate framework for getting the respect you deserve as an HR leader? Yeah. I think find ways to make an impact or recommend initiatives that will impact all of the underlying business goals of the organization. Write down your ideas, pitch them when you can, run with the ones that you get buy in for. I think it's okay to start small or even to start nowhere and just start taking inventory of all these issues. But when you can start to be a problem solver and say, hey. I saw that we did this thing this way. What if we did it this way? It was more efficient and here's why. I think that goes a long way with with leaders. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Sarah, for giving us a clear road map for getting a seat at the table and raising everyone's perception of HR. For the busy HR leaders listening to this, the TLDR for debunking the biggest myths about HR is number one, find an area that you can make an impact. Number two, write down all your ideas. Number three, pitch them. And four, run with the ones that you get buy in for. If you like this video, hit that like button, subscribe to our channel, and share your biggest learning or challenge as an HR leader. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you on the next episode. Nobody's perfect. But being with you, it took a lot of work. And I'm here for the work, but I lost sight of who I could be. You always do this. It's not that simple. With Rippling, I'm able to automate all of this manual HR and compliance work. I've got business data at my fingertips. I feel proactive. You know I'm always talking about being more proactive. Unbelievable.