Fear of the dark (consultants)
Throughout my career I've encountered many CEO's or board members who've recognized the need for a company culture or leadership consultant but also a few that don't trust the idea at all.
The main themes that cause nausea have been (I'll answer these later in this post)
- The externality of the consultant. How can you help us with our culture if you don't live the culture every day?
2. The fear of only short-term solutions. Consultants are in only for one project and then you'll never hear from them again!
3. The high cost of the service. No quote needed here :)
I admit, I've had similar feelings at times while working on the other side as an HR director. Somehow we're taught already early on that consultants are just some slithery salespeople who have ready-made slides that they use over and over again with different clients even though the problems would be different. Does this ring any bells?
Of course there are a lot of those who would exploit the customer and not deliver what is expected, but then on the other hand the best doers are also many times working on their own or smaller agencies delivering best service to clients as consultants. One of the big trends is the growth of freelance work, we have yet to see where this will take us but it is a sign we should really recognize in all the fields, also in HR, company culture and leadership.
Outsourcing "traditional HR" is one question, it seems to be quite easy for the leaders to outsource the payroll and admin work and e.g. many parts of the recruitment process. This is something we've gotten used to. But using designers and consultants to help with the deeper themes, such as culture auditing or determining the most critical themes for one year, is where the going gets tough...
And what a shame this is for many companies that would get just the help they needed, exactly when they needed it, but don't have the guts to try it out.
As promised, I'll answer the 3 points stated above:
- The best thing about an external HR consultant is that it is external. The person is not blind sighted by the organization, if they work in an agency, they have many colleagues behind them to help deliver the projects. Also working as a consultant, you many times have many projects at the same time or just ended, you have real-time experience and information on the trends and how other companies really do things. There's only so much you can learn from reading books and blogs.
- The world is changing faster every day. Long-term plans and strategies have to be much shorter than before in many industries, so expectations should be also renewed. Company culture is something that can be measured and determined and lead, but it's a continuous work and can't be done just once. A good partner stays with you and helps you flexibly when needed and also tells you when they are needed.
- The cost of an ineffective HR person is probably at least twice the price of a consultant. The scale of work the HR department in many companies have to master if breathtaking. Everything from culture strategy to payroll. Tho whole employee lice-cycle. The way to save money here is to get a person who can rise above, see a bigger picture, think about how the resources are divided and used properly. The way to not save is to hire an intern to handle all by them selves. If you know what you need, then hire a full-time HR, if you don't know what you need or are in hurry or trouble then hire an interim HR director or consultant.
My advice would be to take the brave step and think about the possibility of using an interim director or consultant. It's not only a privilege for big companies with huge budgets but also one possibility for smaller growth companies to focus on the most important things with experienced professionals that the company wouldn't necessarily even have the budget to hire as a full-time employee.