I’m the New Head of HR, Now What? The First 90 Days

Now that yoe got the job, what questions and actions should drive your first 90 days?

So, you just got the top HR job. Congratulations. Your business leader has said the right things. She wants a partner who will contribute to business success. Someone who will help build the talent and organization your company needs to ensure its growth and profitability in the future. You are expected to provide help to the executive team in what is needed for the organization to deliver on its aggressive financial and customer goals with a bold strategy that will be difficult to execute. You are also charged to help fix the HR function to deliver strategic value while maintaining excellence in administering HR processes. The leadership team is eager to hear your ideas.

Now that you’ve got the job you have coveted, what questions and actions should drive your first 90 days? You face several competing demands. You have to deliver results by both fixing the function and contributing business value; build relationships by creating a new HR team and connecting with the business team; manage expectations by delivering on old requirements and creating new expectations; and set an agenda with both a long-term view of where you want to go and a short-term view with clear quick wins. The five questions and sub-questions laid out below are designed to help you manage results, relationships, and expectations. We create these suggestions based on working on transitions with dozens of senior HR leaders. They are intended to help a new head of HR quickly reach high levels of productivity.

1. Do I walk the talk about our business?

Fixing the HR function occurs when it is aligned to deliver business results. Any changes you make in HR people, structure or practices should be done to reach business goals. Knowing the business requires the basics of mastering the income statement and balance sheet, reviewing the business strategy and understanding industry dynamics. The MBA basics allow you to then dive deep into the specifics of how the business works so that you can design and deliver HR work to accomplish those results.

Do I know how we make money?

Each business has a unique formula for making money. You need to learn who the customers are and why they pay your firm for products or services. You may want to do a process map of how your products/services are thought up, developed, and distributed to customers. This allows you to understand how value is created for your firm. In addition, you need to create a cash flow map that shows what happens to money that your customers give you. This map shows capital, supply, and administrative items as well as profit. These maps may come from discussions with line as well as finance and marketing colleagues. They may be surprised that your conversation with them focuses on products and cash more than people, but it is imperative to learn the business to fix the function. You may also look at recent presentations given at the board of directors or other senior management meetings where industry and firm overviews are regularly scheduled. Getting acquainted with the person or people who prepare these presentations will give you a good source of business insight.

Do I see how (and how well) the business operates from multiple points of view?

Different stakeholders have different views of what business is about. In the first three months, you have the luxury of asking the naïve but interested questions that help you understand their perspectives. These 30- to 60-minute meetings inform you about how the business operates and inform stakeholders about what insights you might offer. By the questions you ask them, you set a contract for how you deliver value to them.

• Talk to senior line managers about the business, their goals, their experiences with HR and how people and organization can help them deliver their goals. Learn how they think about people and organization and discern how their goals can be met through your initiatives.
• Talk to the corporate and divisional CFO about the financial requirements for success. Find out about the market value of the firm, particularly intangibles, and how investors perceive the firm’s current intangible value. Learn the financial metrics that matter most in this company and ask them to help put HR investments in these terms.
• Talk to customers about how your organization does relative to competitors. What are their buying criteria? What do they want more or less of from your firm? What is your firm’s current and desired reputation (or brand)? How could these target customers participate in designing innovative HR practices that deliver their desired experiences and brand?
• Talk to analysts and investors who value your firm in the public marketplace (or headquarters, if you are in a region or business). Find out what they look for in valuing your firm, how your firm ranks with competitors on intangibles, and what would have to happen to increase their confidence in you.

Do I have firsthand experience with the product/service? 

Sometimes, when new to a company we don’t know the products or services. It is useful to act like a customer – buy the product, use the service, find out how competitors stack up and discover in what ways our products fulfill or fail the promise made to customers.