Human Resources: Cross-Department Collaboration
Lee la versión en español aquí.
Human Resources has been conceived historically as a support department that, acting from the edges of an organization, provides different kinds of services to all areas thus considering these areas as internal clients. Sometimes the absence of a common denominator, bringing these services together on a strategically oriented vision towards business growth, has resulted in the department becoming unable to contribute a great portion of its potential talent:
The ability to overcome the strategic objectives of an organization, through a working method devised from the concepts of cross-collaboration and network.
At Wolox this involves not only engaging but also empowering. Achievable with various actors (whose area of expertise may -and sometimes must not — be HR), to build innovative knowledge and reach results that the company would not have accomplished if Human Resources would have positioned itself as a provider rather than acting as a facilitator of its work processes.
Clearly, this position adds a significant share of complexity to the matter. And, above all, it is clear that it’s unlikely to achieve this if there is no shared vision (involving every party) about the mission underlying the processes performed, which in turn lays the foundation for HR department’s leadership on processes intended to facilitate.
See also: You have Developed your App, What comes Next? Is There a “Next”?
At Wolox, the mission underlying each of the processes provided by Human Resources is to re-generate our work culture (as we believe this is the only way to take care of it, especially at the time a company’s business starts growing exponentially).
To make this a possibility, additionally having processes clearly set out, it is essential to have, above all, people (across the entire company) who are committed to caring for and enriching our workplace. In turn, the fact that our work culture is 100% focused on the happiness of the people we work with every day, makes it easier to have many Woloxers willing to be part of this mission.
As an example, I would like to share briefly how this integration is, in particular accomplished in the process of recruitment, evaluation, and selection of Woloxers.
It starts when we spontaneously promote our brand. We are proud of the company we are part of, and it’s very common that we transmit the enthusiasm and happiness we feel at work with our family, friends and acquaintances, making it possible to draw the attention of talented young people in the most remote places in universities. It is worth mentioning we do this with no other motivation than how proud we feel to be part of this company, and the impact this has on the results of the recruitment process is enormous.
At a later stage, and deep within the candidates’ evaluation process, the HR department promotes that every area actively participates in the recruiting process as well as in the decision-making process as much as the HR department does.
In this sense, usually a candidate, besides being interviewed by key people from the Human Resources’ area, is also evaluated by Woloxers in the area they would be performing duties (most of the time, by two or up to three different Woloxers). The goal of these assessments is not only to ensure that candidates meet the requirements (regarding technical aspects and potential) of the team formed, but also to transmit our culture in terms of assessing whether the potential candidates could adopt it as their own.
See also: Home Office: A Mutual Benefit
It is worth mentioning that, for a process of this nature to succeed, it is necessary and crucial for correct and careful training before conducting these process interviews. Not only does this ensure the quality of the evaluation process itself but also involves Woloxers as key players in the process, communicating the great value their role has in it, making them a crucial part on the decisions directly affecting the make-up of their work team.
An integration of this nature also occurs in other processes assisted by the Human Resources department, including: Wolox induction process, training and development process, and performance assessment process. However, I will save this topic for a future article to provide proper recognition and thoroughly discuss each of these processes.
As a closing remark of this “introduction” to the cross-collaboration approach, we have to organize the Human Resources area. I would also like to emphasize that in addition to the networking concept (I previously mentioned) is the concept of an interdisciplinary approach to actions. It’s defined; as a paradigm from which we seek to build knowledge and methodology in conjunction with the views and opinions of everyone willing to be a part of the mission of building the best place to work every day. We are thus highlighting the work of all Woloxers engaged and involved. The exponential growth achieved by Wolox throughout 2015 has been largely thanks to them. Cheers! :D
Posted by Santiago Bermúdez Baglietto (santiago.baglietto@wolox.com.ar) & Daniela Martin (daniela.martin@wolox.com.ar)
