How does an entity that largely oper­ates behind closed doors get out the word of its good works and com­mand trust at all lev­els of the orga­ni­za­tion, not just the C– Level? I’m see­ing more and more prac­ti­tion­ers talk of recog­ni­tion and respect, the lack of it and how to get it.

Good works and help behind closed doors go on every­day in Cor­po­rate Amer­ica but it can’t always be rec­og­nized in tra­di­tional ways, hence the closed doors. C knows what is going on and says good job over the speaker phone and that’s it. You might be expected to under­stand that your recog­ni­tion comes by retain­ing your employ­ment, qual­i­fy­ing for and receiv­ing a COLA  increase at the end of the year and feel­ing spe­cial when ATS, HRIS ven­dors and Staffing Agency end of year chotchkies show up… if the Recep­tion­ist doesn’t sack them before you ever see them. Due to the con­fi­den­tial­ity of so many HR mis­sions, they’re never heard of again except in the most gen­er­ally unrec­og­niz­able terms over a Cosmo on Hump Day.

Why do we care? Why do we think we need recognition?

Some of it could be because we are peo­ple too and we want recog­ni­tion just like every­one else, though some peo­ple sure seem to need more of it than oth­ers.  The most impor­tant rea­son is that it’s about trust and buy-in. Because freak­ing peo­ple out when HR requests their pres­ence and being thought of as com­pany police is counter-productive. It’s about mov­ing and shak­ing the employer brand, attract­ing tal­ent, retain­ing the tal­ent you have, so much more than warn­ings for dress code violations.

When HR cre­ates and dri­ves pol­icy with an iron fist, is respon­si­ble for keep­ing health care pre­mi­ums low by forc­ing peo­ple to go to health fairs in the cafe­te­ria, is required to act in so many ways as the unof­fi­cial legal depart­ment, admin­is­ters ben­e­fits and ends up involved with the most per­sonal infor­ma­tion and secrets peo­ple are required to divulge to employ­ers on that nasty FMLA, STD and LTD paper­work, knows and in many cases rec­om­mends everyone’s salaries, is privy to trans­gres­sions and admin­is­ters their dis­ci­pline, and gets “rid” of peo­ple, among so many other highly sen­si­tive and fun­da­men­tally crit­i­cal func­tions, is it really a won­der why staff is afraid of what is per­ceived so often as the KGB.

For depart­men­tal rep­u­ta­tion and PR I think it is impor­tant dur­ing ori­en­ta­tion and other oppor­tune times to plug the fact that because a high degree of con­fi­den­tial­ity is required with many sit­u­a­tions that end up in the HR offices many of the good works it does will never be known. This is pre­cisely why I was nick­named “Secret Agent Porter” at my last job.

Some­times while bar­rel­ing down the hall and I could hear staff… “There goes Secret Agent Porter, won­der what she’s up to now!” It was excit­ing and glam­orous, like the life of Agent 99 or Natasha… peo­ple would run inter­fer­ence for me at the drop of a hat, all I would have to say was “Hey guys, I’m on a mis­sion, would you please defer traf­fic down the other hall?” They would rather miss a meet­ing than let some­one through until I relin­quished them from duty while the author­i­ties escorted some­one out with­out anyone’s notice. They received thank you cards or email from me. Every­one was a dep­u­tized HR Assis­tant. It was fun, they weren’t afraid of me. Staff would stop by, ask if there were any “mis­sions” they could help with. I would always come up with some­thing to keep them engaged, happy and feel­ing appreciated.

It’s also impor­tant to ensure the depart­ment is rec­og­nized in vis­i­ble ways when it can be and is appro­pri­ate. When the IT depart­ment is doing rocket sci­ence and get­ting bagel bas­kets from C, if you put up fliers around the build­ing for “Blood Pres­sure Screen­ing” every­one is just going to laugh. Tim­ing is every­thing and it is largely up to the cre­ative genius of the HR team to do things right and do the right thing — at the right time. Tes­ti­mo­ni­als from sat­is­fied inter­nal cus­tomers — vol­un­tary not under duress are best– are good in the com­pany newslet­ter. If you can man­age to save someone’s life or career and get it on video or a pod­cast for the com­pany Share point site you are an HR Rock Star.

Regard­less of how con­ser­v­a­tive and brown shoe the orga­ni­za­tion is we work for, we made a deci­sion to accept the mis­sion. There is always a way to be cre­ative, give and earn trust, show and gar­ner appre­ci­a­tion and recog­ni­tion but it calls for inno­va­tion and lead­er­ship not fol­low­ing like blind sheep. Some­times it means plot­ting a con­cept, cre­at­ing a busi­ness case and per­sis­tence to take it to deci­sion mak­ers. It can mean being told no and hav­ing to have the where­withal to take it back to the draw­ing board, rework it and present it again if you really believe in your idea. It might mean lob­by­ing oth­ers with sim­i­lar ideas, form­ing an exploratory com­mit­tee over Cos­mos, get­ting buy-in and going in as a team with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all lev­els of employ­ees and departments.

It means hav­ing entre­pre­neur­ial spirit, own­ing your work, believ­ing in your ideas and being an agent of change to make them happen.

Maybe I’m jaded but I have been for­tu­nate to feel trusted, appre­ci­ated and val­ued by my inter­nal and exter­nal cus­tomers and partners.

What is the level of trust in the orga­ni­za­tion you’re with? How can you influ­ence it?