How Many Light Bulbs Does it Take to Change an HR Person

Three….But they all have to be broken first.

In a posting a few weeks back The HR Introvert wrote a Blog entitled: How Many HR People Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb. I liked these three the best:

• None. They're used to working in the dark
• One. But it will take him a while to get the approvals
• We don't know, their committee is still working on it

But I thought it might be fun to ponder the opposite question: How many light bulbs (ideas) does it take to change an HR Person?

Now I am not saying that HR people are any more set in their ways than any other average professional, but then again, there is that employee handbook.

I was talking to a local bank executive the other day who was interested in having my new company as a customer. We are building a set of HR data products using advance artificial intelligence. Pretty cool stuff and he was impressed (OK – he did want my business) but he said he showed it to the HR VP and she said: “We already have too much data.” Hum.

How many times in HR have we used the phrase: That’s the way we do it here?

HR seems to me to be one of the more dynamic fields these days. That’s why I’m in it. Big Data, Social Recruiting, Just in Time Resourcing, Autonomous Work Groups, just read the blogs of the Top 100 Most Social Human Resources Experts on Twitter and you can see how dynamic it really is. But it is also one of the slowest to embrace change. Maybe we are gun shy in the HR field, but change is going to be the most important factor of our success in the next decade!

So how many ideas does it take to change an HR person? Here’s a few thoughts that come to mind.

•          One – It just has to come from the CEO
•          Two – One from a SHRM conference and the other from someone already doing it
•          None – I don’t have time right now
•          Will it be on the SPHR test?

Give me some of your ideas.