Role of HR in Facilitating and Developing High-Performance Teams

As a key strategic function, HR can facilitate teams for High-Performance and achieving superior quality benchmarks at work.

The Human Resource department in any organization play a key role in driving employee-centric functions and motivate the teams by driving various functions strategically. The key amongst them include recruiting the right talent pool, competence building and training, facilitating superior outcomes or achievements by aligning it with incentives or pay.

The key roles of HR in an organization for Motivating and Facilitating High-Performance Teams have been described below:

Selecting the Right Talent Pool and Facilitating Team Cohesiveness: Organizations grow by leveraging the benefits of employee diversity. Research and survey results have shown that organizations with diverse composition of employees with respect to gender, age and ethnicity, have a positive impact on the organizational productivity and in building a high-performance culture.

Since managing diversity can be very challenging, the onus is on the HR team to see to it that the diverse teams work collaboratively and have proper conflict resolution mechanisms in place.

Diversity management as an important function of HR is focused at enhancing opportunities for the employees, empowering them to contribute innovatively and making them feel valued as a precious resource in the organization.

By recruiting the right mix and composition of teams for varied responsibilities, the HR teams contribute to setting up of high-performance teams with the optimum skills, knowledge and expertise.

Resolution of Conflicts: High-performance teams unlike regular teams have conflict resolution system in place and can resolve conflicts more constructively. Conflicts can stimulate prosperity and growth for an organization, when addressed positively and constructively.

Conflicts can unleash several opportunities by presenting challenges, strengthening the collaborative mechanisms for problem-solving and motivates the team members to demonstrate their “Out of the Box Thinking” capabilities.

For resolving a conflict effectively, the matter of concern should be dealt with in the initial stages and must be depersonalized. Conflicts help in generation of new ideas and improve the perspectives of the team members when they indulge in collaborative decision making, resolution of individual and collective differences by way of brainstorming and approaching the issues methodically.

Conflicts should be managed properly so that it does not impact the team performance negatively and impede productivity. When the members of the team come together with the mission of achieving a common goal, conflicts or differences are bound to occur. But, the conflicts should be maintained in reasonable limits for averting the harmful consequences and should be viewed as an opportunity for further improvement.

The HR teams can assist in conflict resolution by implementing the policy framework, enforcing disciplinarian mechanisms and most importantly understanding the differences in the working styles of the individual members in the group. By understanding individual differences and compatibilities, the members of the team will learn to cooperate and work harmoniously by ignoring the differences.

Foster Collaboration: The HR function can facilitate and foster collaboration amongst the team members for working collectively towards a common goal. By implementing best practices and bringing together the diverse competencies as well as experiences of the team members, the HR teams drive optimum employee performance and motivate the high-performers.

Communication: Effective communication and free flow exchange of ideas is the hallmark of the High-Performance teams. The team members should be allowed with the liberty to share new ideas, critical information and take part crucial decisions.

Communication in this context means intra-group communication, cross-functional group communication practices and communication with the external world or the key stakeholders. HR teams can play the role of facilitators, mentors and guide the team members in conflict resolution process as well as in the implementation of critical decisions constructively by strengthening the communication framework.

The team members get the desired training and support from the HR team for communicating effectively and working collaboratively. By setting up a transparent mechanisms and encouraging openness as well as flexibility in the organizational culture, HR helps the team members to work together collaboratively for achieving synergy in results.

Training of the Teams: HR department in an organization play the role of facilitators as discussed above and act as champions of change. They have a key role to play in upskilling, strengthening of the competencies of the team members both personally and technically for improving opportunities for their career growth and developing high-performance organizations. The teams can be trained on team dynamics, effective communication & conflict resolution practices, leadership and negotiation skills and problem solving techniques for addressing the issues sensitively and positively.

It is the duty of the HR team to train the new entrants on the system, processes, team dynamics and organizational functioning. The new joinees are acclimatized on the group expectations and norms, organizational culture and practices.

HR also is responsible for sensitively dealing with the departure of the members of high-performance teams by recognizing their presence and contributions, acknowledging how important was their presence for the team and how they have contributed towards the pursuit of organizational excellence.

Building the Appropriate Reward and Recognition Framework: HR is responsible for planning and implementing an appropriate reward/recognition strategy for motivating high-performing individuals as well as teams.

The Role of HR as Business Partners, Advisors and a Strategic Discipline: HR today is more of a strategic discipline. The HR teams play the role of Business Partners and take an active part in strategic decision making, business planning and streamlining the team resources for achieving the intended goals. They build the organizational structure, establish the processes, help in development of the project plans for the teams and advise the management on crucial decisions pertaining to the selection of the team composition with diverse competencies and experiences.

Besides this, HR is responsible for building cohesive teams and motivating them for working towards the larger organizational vision by conducting team building exercises and motivating the teams to deliver their best.

Role of HR in Metrics Development and Performance Measurement System: The key focus of HR in the present business scenario is to measure the outcome of various performance initiatives by establishing evaluation metrics and a smart performance measurement framework.

Metrics definition or performance measurement system, help in establishing the priorities of the teams clearly, setting a direction or an action plan for improving in the future and enable the team members to have a better understanding about their areas of improvement.

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