The Strategic Reason to Be Disruptive in #HR

We in the HR/Recruitment industry like to a) use buzzwords and b) coin new buzzwords. Reinvent, reimagine, talent community, HR brand, candidate experience and many more. I would like to argue that these new terms are created for the sake of creating new terms. Is there any strategic impact to using a specific term over another? Better yet, is integrating a new term and its concept really going to positively impact whatever you are trying to do? In the case of HR our primary goal is to attract and retain top talent so that organizations realize maximum performance, which translates into desirable top and bottom line results. Simple enough, right?

Well, let's look at a specific example. Let's take the word "disruption", which was used quite a bit at HireVue’s Digital Disruption User Conference in Park City, Utah. In this example, we obtained a very clear idea through the speakers, delegates and event organizers of what disruption meant. It's about pushing boundaries, doing things differently, getting rid of status quo and mediocrity, taking risks, taking action, swinging the pendulum, and so forth. So this is great and all because we got to see some pretty disruptive behavior out there --- you know what I'm talking about... ahem... Phil Rodriguez and Backstreet Boys. So yeah, that happened! I was just thankful nobody tried to imitate Toronto Mayor, Rob Ford.

Okay, moving on shall we! :)

When we engage disruptive behavior we need to ask ourselves, "why". Why would you want to be disruptive? What are those factors that are pushing us to want to be disruptive? Why should we care? In the case of the Backstreet Boys appearance, the reason why is simply to entertain the audience, nothing more, nothing less. But when we're talking about business, specifically the business of people the reasons are a little bit more profound. Ask yourself, "why should I be disruptive in my work?"

By the way, feel free to check out my post titled, "Top 10 Moments From HireVue's Digital Disruption - #vueDD User Conference", which has all the top videos and moments from the event.

My Simple Logic

In my view the answer to why is relatively simple. Here we go, and here's what I want you to do. First, go to your office and open up the bottom drawer of your desk, and pull out your organizational HR strategy. You know that document that gets hacked to bits every year and then gets shoved away in a folder in your desk somewhere. Second, what does it say? What are the core HR objectives, priorities and goals? Third, ask yourself, "are we as an HR function successfully delivering on these objectives"? The answer to the third question will provide you with the answer to my original question about disruption.

My Humble Gut Feeling

Believe me, I am no rocket scientist but my gut tells me that 99.9% of you are not delivering on every single aspect of your HR strategy. If you are, I'd like to meet you. You're a rockstar, can walk on water and must be doing something truly extraordinary. For the rest of you, there are aspects of what you are currently doing on a day-to-day basis that needs to change. This is where disruption comes into play. You need to a) own up to the fact that certain practices are no longer current and yielding the results you want, b) commit to the concept of disruption and what it means and c) start doing it, NOW.