Within my career, I've adapted my value proposition to the evolution of roles and responsibilities I've held. As I've reflected on the purpose of each role and the part it played within the company, I've evaluated many of my HR colleagues and found commonalities that exist with these phases of my own experience. Eventually, I concluded there are enough similarities and differences within the HR profession to enable categorization into three personas: traffic cop, city planner and mayor.
Early in my career, my role was highly reactive. Just as you can envision a traffic cop standing in the middle of a busy intersection, directing traffic, blowing their whistle and responding to the needs of the townspeople, my role was highly reactive and focused on administrative support to "keep things moving." I was protecting the safety of each driver, allowing pedestrians to cross safely and ensuring procedures were tightly followed. I loved being in the middle of the action, satisfied I was serving my community with purpose. As a traffic cop, it was my responsibility to emulate authority, command respect and ensure compliance to keep people safe and efficient.
Years later, I grew into my first leadership role and excitedly took on new responsibilities, including people management, strategic insight and business leadership. I now had a team to support the needs of the organization — or "city" — for the traffic cop responsibilities. This freed up my time to focus more on the short- and long-term goals of the organization, creating alignment with our people strategy and our business strategy. Much like a city planner, the day-to-day moved a bit more slowly, but I was focused on maintaining our existing stability while planning for infrastructure and growth. Where would we build the next neighborhood? What resources were needed to supply electricity and plumbing to new developments? How would we handle additional traffic and retail demands from the residents?
This new way of engaging with work was initially foreign to me, and I approached the role with a traffic cop mindset: Wait for direction, then react. Understandably, this caused frustration with my executive team, as they expected my contribution to be at a higher level. After a few valuable lessons, I adapted and started to become an advisor, listening to the other business functions and adding my perspective and advice as it related to the human capital part of the organization. Of course, I was still accountable to execute the strategy. My engagement deepened and I found a new sense of purpose.
More recently, I recognized HR was evolving. Although a standard of expectation still existed to keep workplaces safe, compliant and efficient, there were new demands as the power shifted to candidates and employees. Top talent was hard to find, and without talent, work stalls. CEOs started turning to HR to understand how they could attract, retain and reward employees. Buzz terms like culture, employee experience and employer branding were becoming a daily conversation within the HR community. Although all of these things mattered previously, they hadn't been the nucleus of purpose for what the C-suite wanted from their HR department.
This evolution included renewed interest in employee engagement, recruiting practices, onboarding experiences and career development. Employees wanted to work for companies that cared about more than profits. They wanted to clearly see how their work contributed to corporate goals. They were seeking alignment of personal identity and wanted to work for a high-quality brand.
Enter the mayor. HR "mayors" are all about maintaining the pulse of the city, listening to constituents and managing the balance of advocating for the needs of the residents with city resources and community culture. They enjoy being among the people, kissing babies and shaking hands, providing PR communications and updates. Mayors have strong interpersonal skills and the ability to express empathy. They are also able to promote and motivate others into action simply by expressing their own eagerness and excitement for ideas.
The value of the mayor is that of brand ambassador, someone who authentically emulates the emotional experience of your corporate culture. Without them, workplaces can feel stiff, impersonal or disconnected. One of the biggest values the mayor brings is their ability to build relationships and, by proxy, trust. The mayor also understands they work for the city, representing its best interest. They have the skill set to understand operations, typically with a background as a traffic cop or city planner themselves. But they equally prioritize the employee experience, connected to the idea that without investing in a city where people want to "live," the city won't grow.
What's challenging about this is most HR individuals are expected to deliver on all of these strengths without recognizing they are completely different skill sets. Sometimes there is overlap, but most of the time, it's unrealistic to expect someone who thrives in work that requires high attention to detail and a love for routine to also excel at public speaking and strategic foresight. Some professionals may be able and even desire to grow and evolve their careers into different roles, but it's unrealistic to expect high-quality expertise in all three simultaneously.
My advice to business owners and CEOs is to invest in the skills needed for your business depending on size, maturity, exit strategy and growth path. Although not applicable for every circumstance, most sources would advise having a ratio of one HR person per 100 employees. I don't disagree with this, but do think the first 100–200 employees should have an on-site traffic cop and an as-needed city planner consultant. This allows you to invest in your foundation and build a strong framework for scaling while also incorporating strategic input for the next stage. Ideally, your on-demand strategist should work with the tactical operator to foster alignment and possibly prepare them to become a mayor or city planner when your company is ready for its next HR hire, enriching and enabling your city to become a bustling metropolis.
