I've been thinking a bit about the column from Workforce Management that questioned the need for HR Generalists within organizations - see the entire article here and Lori's first report here.   My first take for HR Generalists was to give up any controlling, "personnel" feeling activities that are really transactional and control oriented and get to the place where they are adding value and doing things that get them to the table.

That's easy to say, but how do you effectively neutralize the negative manager in your organization who doesn't value what you do from a HR perspective?  My advice is that you need to engage them directly to understand their needs, then provide a scoreboard to the extent you can that shows you are delivering on those needs.  Of course, it often seems this type of influencer needs numbers to feel like things are in control, thus my quick migration to the "scoreboard" solution.

Case in point - someone I socialize with professionally recently had an order for 11-12 professionals (same position) to fund a new venture in their company.  Almost all the managers in the chain were supportive and engaged, but there was one individual not directly in the process who was reported as skeptical that the order could be filled in a timely fashion.   The individual also had a reputation for being critical in an ex-post-facto way of failed initiatives. 

My colleague"s solution?  To develop and communicate a recruiting funnel scoreboard reported each week that showed the number of raw candidates being generated in the process, then tracked the number of candidates phone screened, interviewed, etc. to the point of hire.  The result - all individuals in the process were effectively "boxed in", meaning everyone knew where the process stood and couldn't snipe from the sidelines.  An example of the funnel appears below.  Good stuff and one example of how over-communicating progress can neutralize a critic of your HR function.

1. 223 – Total Candidates
2. 134 – Viable Candidates
3. 57 – Candidates who pre-qualified on travel, comp for position
4. 39 – Number of Phone Interviews conducted
5. 19 – Number of Candidates passed on to Hiring Manager and team for phone interviews.
6. TBD – Number of Candidates brought in for live interviews with Operations and HR Team
7. TBD – Number and Timing of New Hires For Target Hire Date

This is just one example - but going "granular" on items important to critics of your HR function is a very effective way to neutralize the criticism, and more importantly, turn that into an opportunity to show you get the numbers, you are the numbers!  Of course, you still have to deliver, but that's not a problem for a new age HR Pro like yourself, right?