Why Visible Leadership is Your Key to Success. And How Your HR Leader Will Help You Get There.

Gone are the days of conventional career-long positions. Instead, people bounce from job to job moving both within, and outside of, individual businesses and across industries. Making employee retention more important than ever, and a growing scarcity in today’s work-life culture.

So what can you do to increase your own retention of the right people? To inspire staff engagement, innovation, and increase of your bottom line? Our #1 answer. Visible leadership.

Be a visible leader & encourage visible HR

As a business owner → It’s so important to see an HR leader as your vital leadership partner. Yet they’re often overlooked. It’s their expertise in employee relations and best practices that play a huge factor in any thriving workplace.

As an HR professional → You must advocate for visible leadership. Both your own and that of other leaders and managers. Take action and engage with your people.

Employees need to feel valued. They need to feel encouraged. You can’t do that from behind your keyboard. Lack of visibility creates barriers to communication and can tank employee motivation and business performance. Don’t discredit how integral visible leadership is to your overall success. And how often it is overlooked.

So how do you increase your visibility?

Encourage vulnerability and open communication in your leaders. And prioritize your people by giving HR a seat at the table.

“Today's most successful companies and those that make the list of best places to work, they all have one thing in common: happy people… CEOs are beginning to understand they can no longer consider HR as a back-office function. That in order to better impact their bottom line, they must invest in their people” by giving HR a seat at the table. - Forbes

Business Owners – Why HR needs to be your visible leadership partner

Take a seat

Conventionally, a seat at the table has been “reserved for those departments that are seen to make the largest contributions to the bottom line.” Human Resources professionals often struggle to quantitatively measure their contribution to the bottom line. And, as a result, are left out of vital employee relations and important conversations.

Don’t make this mistake. A great HR leadership partner is your key to continued success.

Through this lens, it is undeniable how big of an impact good, visible, HR can have on your bottom line. And how, without it, employee satisfaction decreases and company performance declines right along with it.

Boots-on-the-ground partnership

At Boss Consulting HR we advocate for boots-on-the-ground leadership. A philosophy and expectation we hold our clients to every day. What this means is that you must be integrated in your organization. You must be visible as a leader to ensure company success.

When you don’t get out and interact with your employees and fellow leaders, you miss the opportunity to help them. Visible leaders are out there on the floor, they are intentional in taking a proactive stance to leadership. Not a reactive one.

Be visible together

Think of it from a top-down perspective. When a workplace’s leaders work together – and that partnership is visible to your employees – you set the tone and expectation of how your employees should engage and behave with one another.

Both you and your HR representative should take to the floor of the office, sit in on meetings, and have a physical and visible presence with your employees.

It is important to work within your workplace and not outside of it. Know what each employee does and what each job entails. Take a vested interest and give your undivided attention.

HR Professionals – How to take action as a visible leader now

Do Not Be the “Invisible Department”

Get out from behind the computer screen. It helps no one to keep HR hidden away. Let people put a face to the name and see the human in Human Resources.

When you stay in your office and don’t interact with anyone on a day-to-day basis this is not good leadership. Human Resources is there to be the bridge between management and employees. To hear concerns and set best practice policies. You cannot bridge that gap if you aren’t visible to manage concerns and encourage open communication.

Set the tone

As an HR leader, you can set the tone and practices for leadership within your company. It is your unique expertise that allows you to do so. Don’t waste it. Instead, set that office culture by being visible and modeling effective visible leadership traits for other managers.

By being a visible leader yourself, you also remind other leaders within the company just how important the role of HR is to fostering a happy and efficient workplace. You set the tone for what good work looks like and it encourages others to want to do good work as well.

Communicate HR-forward Policies and Protocols with Employees

Transparency is key. Communicate with your employees day-to-day and not just when there is a change. Sending out an email memo does not foster employee engagement or satisfaction. Being open and honest and hearing employee concern does.

Even when a difficult situation arises, or a tough decision is made, employees can perceive it as a positive one when you get out there on the floor and communicate difficult changes effectively. As an HR leader, you must partner with management to foster this transparent communication.

“As a leader you have to know what every role within your company does. Or else you’re going to be supporting employees at 70% versus 100%” - Dana Dowdell (Entrepreneur & HR Expert)

Visible leadership is key to your bottom line. Seeing your HR professionals as your leadership partners is imperative for continued company growth and success. The Institute of Leadership & Management says it best, “in order to improve business performance and employee motivation, HR has to once again become an integral and widely recognized function that frequently demonstrates its contribution not only to the business but to every employee.”

If you don’t have your HR buddy yet, and your business function is begging you to do so, reach out! At Boss Consulting HR we are here to help you do just that. Your boots-on-the-ground leadership experts, we champion visible HR at its best and believe in partnership and open communication with all our small business owners.

If you’re an HR professional and are looking to learn more about the importance of visible HR and how to incorporate visible leadership into your day-to-day management style check out our Quirky HR Coaching where no question is off limits.