A Shift in Human Resource Landscape

Joan M. Morehead, Chief Human Resource Officer, Edward Rose & Sons.

Joan M. Morehead began her career in the Facilities Management and Construction arena before embarking in the Human Resource sector.   With over two decades of hands-on experience, her key focus remains building environments for exceptional team member experience.   Morehead serves as Chief Human Resource Officer at Edward Rose & Sons.

Please share with our readers your career journey and current roles and responsibilities.

My journey as a business leader spans more than 25 years, and it has been a meandering path.   Even with the unexpected turns, lessons learned and new opportunities, I find my current role most fulfilling. I pivoted in my work journey to HR beginning in the executive compensation domain, thanks to the mentorship of the Senior VP of HR & Administration. My professional journey encompassed diverse sectors, including interior design and construction management, healthcare, not-for-profit consultancy, and education. I had the privilege of working across a variety of organizations and industries. My professional background in HR has equipped me with a comprehensive understanding of various facets, ranging from compensation and benefits to HR strategy and operations. The greatest part of my adventure has been learning from mentors, colleagues, and teammates.   Working as part of a larger team reinforces our opportunity to add value and contribute to the future success of our organizations. 

What are some of the latest trends you notice in the industry?

One of the prominent trends in the HR landscape is the shift from being a gatekeeper to a strategic business partner. In the early days of personnel management, HR primarily focused on keeping track of things and administrative tasks like ensuring compliance with policies and procedures. The advent of automation and the evolving nature of job roles like the rise of hybrid job positions have necessitated a transformation in HR's role to a business partner, at every level. In addition, this shift also demands HR professionals to proactively anticipate both employee and business needs, adding a higher value component for human resources.  

"Unlike earlier generations of HR practitioners who primarily practiced in their disciplines, today's most productive and positive HR leaders are those who understand the business and work as a team member alongside of other business leaders to grow and drive business success."

Challenging assumptions with a focus on process improvement is a key factor to create future workplaces and teams that thrive in their environment.   There is nothing like an employee who loves what they do and where they work.   Our People teams are instrumental in working with business leaders to assure the tools and equipment are in place to create a positive, productive workplace. 

Can you share some of the challenges you notice HR leaders are facing today?

Let’s consider how we frame challenges.   For example, when filling open roles it makes a difference how we consider this work effort.   Making a strategic shift in an approach to recruitment to transition from a traditional model focused on filling positions to an approach centered around attracting the best fit talent for our organization and effectively managing employee retention rates.  How do we know what’s the best fit?   We work with the hiring managers to help understand what they need to solve their business opportunities. As we shift to talent attraction it makes us consider how we present ourselves in the community at large and how we cultivate a positive brand that appeals to the type of candidates we want to consider as future team members. Hiring managers can focus on how these candidates fit in our roles by participating in career fairs and interviews.  

The dynamics of the talent pool today are vastly different from the past. Over the past 10 years, we have been facing low unemployment rates due to the unavailability of qualified candidates. The rise of gig workers has introduced a new dimension to the workforce where people are more inclined to engage and disengage with companies as opportunities arise. This has diminished the sense of loyalty employees have to companies and vice versa. As a result, HR leaders need to evolve from simply filling job vacancies to strategically acquiring the right talent and ensuring their continuous development, working as an integral member of the hiring team and involving the hiring managers in exploratory conversations to set the tone for business needs. 

Another challenge is not being afraid to make mistakes.   We recently coined these as “discoveries” which changed our perspective from a place of fear to report to one of exploration and process improvement.   Small language changes can help guide more open and meaningful conversations. 

What are some of the strategies you employ to adapt to these changes?

We have developed a strategic framework for our People Team initiatives, and philosophy along with a mission statement that would align with the mission, vision, and values of our organization. This strategic framework has since become an integral part of our decision-making process. Every time a new initiative is on the horizon, we assess its alignment with our mission, vision, values, and framework. We analyze whether the initiative aligns philosophically with our desired organizational goals and ensure we are in step with our internal team mates across our functional teams, including operations, finance, IT.   

What are some of the technological advancements adopted by HR professionals to streamline operations?

The transition from manual efforts to automation is an evolving journey. We are carefully assessing the value AI tools can have for our teams, while considering the security needed to protect our company’s assets. For example, implementation of a chatbot. Chatbot does incorporate AI but it operates within a defined and controlled data set, ensuring sensitive information remains secure and protected from external exposure. This is a key partnership project between our Information Technology and People teams.  We work together to consider calculated risk and the right guardrails to safeguard our data as we venture into the realm of emerging technologies. The primary reason behind implementing the chatbot is to allow our employees to self-serve. We aim to provide all our team members with access to information at their convenience, reducing the need for them to adhere to a traditional model of making phone calls or waiting for email responses. We understand, however, some of our team members still want to talk to someone they trust.  We are initially focusing on automating fundamental tasks as we believe that by automating routine tasks, we can liberate our employees from task work and create time to build relationships.

How do you envision the future of this industry?

I envision an evolution in the way we approach cross-functional collaboration to support the success of each of our teams. Through this change effort, we are increasing our ability to make data accessible that allows understanding for the challenges and success of each team. This includes assessing the team's financial performance, their adherence to operational metrics, and people-related metrics. For instance, when evaluating a specific community, we consider factors like their performance to key metrics, high employee retention rates, and well-managed financials. In such cases, we would expect to see a corresponding increase in resident satisfaction levels.  What is particularly noteworthy is that we are actively fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making throughout the organization. We are ensuring that these data points work in concert so that it enables us to cross-pollinate insights and use them as robust management tools to facilitate the success of our teams.  This is an intentional effort and each of the officers for the IT, Operations, Finance and People teams work together to create understanding and support success for all teams. 

What is your piece of advice to your fellow peers?

It is important to remember that at the heart of any business is people. People run the business, and they serve customers. We are human beings, not human doings. It is important to help people succeed and foster an environment where people can thrive together. Instead of adopting a punitive approach focused on monitoring and rectifying what individuals are doing wrong, we are best served to actively assist people in identifying strengths and support in growth. It is here we find high-performing organizations.

 

Construction

Human Resource

Information Technology

Financial

Healthcare