When I turned 16-years old I had been dreaming of the same car for as long as I’d known what cars were. I had eyes for only one car – a 1976 BMW 2002. Instead, Dad told me since he was buying; he was choosing the vehicle that all the ladies would see me driving. I came home one day to find an egg-shaped, 1974 Gremlin sitting in the driveway.
To say that this piece of junk had a few bumps and bruises would be an insult to used cars everywhere. The damage this car did to my reputation was irrevocable. Driving the thing was hell … my knees were up to my nipples and in the heat of the summer I felt like one of those burritos under a heat lamp at the QuickieMart. The damn thing didn’t even have cup holders. The empty beer cans rolling around the floorboard quickly posed a greater than average risk to myself and other drivers.
My stuff piled up so that I could barely seat a passenger next to me. Probably the worst part of this newly acquired POS was the smell emanating from the back seat – Becky McDonnald was never gonna climb back there with me. By the end of the day I would probably have been better off just bumming rides from friends.
I had no influence on my father’s buying decision, even though I would be the one driving it. Dad had the dollars, Dad went to the dealership, Dad bought the car … and I drove the car. He had all the power and I was stuck with a vehicle that was virtually useless for the things I wanted to accomplish. So why did HE get to pick out the car that I would be driving? Simple, he had the power.
When it comes to power in an organization, who owns it? You’re kidding right? That’s a no brainer; the CFO has ALL the power. Why is this? They have the money, the title, the influence … and the folks in sales are drawn to the sweet smell of Benjamin’s coming from their pockets.
Why care? Well if you’re in HR and you need a reason to care about the technologies and solutions that your department will use … we probably need to have another conversation. However, maybe you’re just resigned to the fact that you’ll never get to have a say, and you’ve just given up hope. I see new and different HR solutions, literally, every day. What blows me away is how, except in only the most challenged products, it takes only nanoseconds to imagine how useful it could be to an HR department.
Seriously, there are some wicked smart people turning out some wicked cool stuff all the time! Even if your department could only use/afford a fraction of those products, the difference it would make to your company, its employees, and (more importantly) your career is immeasurable.
Couple all that with the fact that HR is a cost center (a relatively unpopular moniker in a down economy), and that if software or solutions are being evaluated for your HR department, it’s most likely to boost your productivity/abilities or cut the costs of a particular function, you should probably give a hoot.
You want to make sure that the boost in productivity/abilities or reduction in costs is achievable by whatever solution the CFO throws his dart at. If you can steer him away from a product you find fault with and towards another product you know to be superior, you win. Otherwise, you’ll be saddled with something that probably wasn’t cheap, and expected to leverage it to do more than what you were doing before. If it were up to me, I’d rather have a voice in all that.
How does HR create the power to influence the acquisition of the right software? One word: Engage. Engage in the marketing process and most importantly, in the sales process. HR’s biggest liability and greatest opportunity for change lies in its lack of knowledge about the market place. They don’t know who has what product or what separates “Solution X” from “Solution Y.” That’s the bad news. The good news is the CFO doesn’t have a corner on that market either. Educate yourself. Become the expert. It won’t take much time or effort to pass up the others if you take advantage of what sales people everywhere are offering – knowledge.
I know this is going to sound crazy, but engage with the sales people – read their literature; take their demos. Instead of being a doormat and automatically pointing the vendors in the direction of the CFO, ask them questions about the product being advertised. Consume the content you are presented with, ask questions, do research, and build an understanding of what’s being presented to you. Educate yourself on the dime of vendors. Next, find what works for the department. Figure out what your team needs throughout the process and own it. Ask yourself what works for you and what doesn’t.
By educating yourself on the products and services, those that work in HR can leverage the power of education to influence the CFO to purchase products and services.
So, don’t get stuck with a Gremlin. Power starts with a P … it doesn’t have to start with a C.
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