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Human Resources Community

Consultation

Definition of Consultation

The ability to provide guidance to organizational stakeholders

Subcompetencies:

  • Coaching
  • Project Management
  • Analytic Reasoning
  • Problem-solving
  • Inquisitiveness
  • Creativity and Innovations
  • Flexibility
  • Respected Business Partner
  • Career Pathing /talent
  • Management/ People Management
  • Time Management

Behaviors:

· Applies creative problem-solving to address business needs and issues
· Serves as an in-house workforce and people management expert
· Analyzes specific business challenges involving the workforce and offers solutions based upon best practices or research
· Generates specific organizational interventions (e.g. culture change, change management, restructuring, training, etc.) to support organizational objectives
· Developing consultative and coaching skills
· Guides employees regarding specific career situations

Assistant: Conducts Initial investigation for HR-based transactional issues. Gathers and, when appropriate, analyzes facts and data for business solutions. Often requires guidance in non-routine situations.

Associate: Raises issues and/or identifies patterns requiring transactional solutions. Identifies stakeholders needs and refers as appropriate. Gathers facts, information and data to inform HR policy and develop solutions. Devises short-term immediate solutions to resolve customer issues. Often requires guidance in moderately difficult situations.

Senior Associate: Serves as a team leader for organizational initiatives and projects. Develops HR and business process improvement solutions at the unit level. Provides guidance to managers regarding HR transactional/policy questions. Occasionally requires guidance.

Professional/Supervisor: Develops HR and business process improvement solutions campus wide for an HR specialty. Provides guidance to managers and business unit teams on HR best practices and HR Strategy. Designs long-term business solutions for policy and/or HRIS Generally requires little or no guidance.

Senior Professional/Manager: Coaches frontline managers and business unit leaders on HR and business related issues. Recognizes HR risks and provides proactive strategic guidance to prevent liability. Designs creative business solutions to align with and drive the business strategy. Generally requires no guidance. Able to consult and advise others in developing consultation skills.

Principal/Director: Develops vision for critical solutions to organizational human capital challenges. Recognizes excessive HR liabilities and provides proactive strategic guidance for remediation. Supervises HR investigations with legal counsel. Designs strategic HR and business solutions Demonstrates broad, in-depth master level proficiency. Applies the competency in exceptionally difficult and most complex situations. Recognized as an organizational authority in exercising the competency. Serves as a key resource, advisor, and leader to others in the area of the competency.

How to Develop Consultation

University Courses:

Course offerings and schedules are subject to change. Refer to class-search.byu.edu for updated offerings and schedules.

· Bachelor’s/Master’s degree in Human Resource Management, Organizational Behavior, or related field

· BYU Human Resource Development – Seminars, Training, Certifications

  • Crucial Conversations: Dialogue Skills for When the Stakes are High
  • Project Management Essentials: for the Unofficial Project Manager
  • Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
  • Multipliers
  • Negotiating Your Way Through Life
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Signature Program
  • Encouraging Innovation from Your Employees
  • Innovation Certification Program
  • Developing and Implementing an Outward Mindset
  • Getting Things Done
  • Thought Leaders Series
  • Supervisor Professional Development
  • Design Thinking: Designing Your Life using Design Thinking and Lego Serious Play
  • Generations at Work
  • Business Writing Skills: Writing from the Top Down
  • Presentation Skills
  • Career Boost Workshop

Training / Other Courses:

· Offered through Professional Associations

  • CUPA-HR
    • Boot Camp
  • SHRM educational programs (wide variety)
  • WorldatWork trainings and courses (wide variety)

· Offered through LinkedIn Learning (free premium subscription for all BYU employees)

  • Suggested searches: “Human Resources Management,” “Project Management,” “Talent Management,” “Recruiting,” “Time Management,” etc.
  • Learning Path examples:
  1. Become an HR Business Partner (11 courses, 12 hours of content)
  2. Become a Project Manager (13 courses, 22 hours of content)
  3. Finding and Retaining Talent (9 courses, 10 hours of content)
  4. Improve Your Organizational Skills (4 courses, 7 hours of content)
  5. Become a Manager (8 courses, 6 hours of content)
  • Course examples:
  1. Performance-Based hiring (42m)
  2. Strategic Human Resources (56m)
  3. Leading Productive Meetings (1h 4m)
  4. Project Management Foundations (3h 20m)
  5. Time Management Fundamentals (2h 53m)

Books/Publications:

· Work Rules!, by Laszlo Bock

· HR From The Outside In, by Dave Ulrich, John Younger, Wayne Brockbank, and Mike Ulrich

· HR Magazine, SHRM quarterly magazine (included with SHRM membership)

· Workspan, WorldatWork monthly magazine (included with WorldatWork membership)

· WorldatWork Journal, WorldatWork quarterly research publication (included with WorldatWork membership)

Experiences:

· Assess your understanding of a department’s business environment

  • Where do they sit in the organizational structure?
  • Who are the primary stakeholders and customers?
  • What is the core purpose of the department?
  • What are the department’s values and guiding principles?
  • How is the department funded?
  • Who makes the decisions on the department’s HR issues?
  • Determine what HR issues a department if facing
  • What has kept them from achieving results in the past?
  • What challenges and opportunities are currently present?
  • What would a successful outcome look like to them?
  • With other HR professionals, brainstorm ideas
  • Apply legal, policy, cultural, and ethical standards to determine areas of risk
  • Share your ideas with department leaders and obtain feedback
  • Adjust/establish a plan with action items and timelines
  • Determine how you will evaluate success of the plan

· Mock Casework

  • Gather several hypothetical employee case situations to analyze and resolve
  • Using your HR knowledge, skills, and critical thinking, propose action plans. Support your plan with legal and policy back-up.
  • Review the action plans with other HR professionals and gather feedback about your assessment of the situations and your proposed actions. Discuss/consider alternative solutions with the other HR professionals.

· Business Processes

  • Identify a BYU HR business process that needs to be changed
  • Investigate ways to improve, replace, or eliminate it while still maintaining a high degree of efficiency and accuracy and meeting customer service and legal requirements
  • Create a proposal for change, including cost estimates
  • Review the proposal with HR professionals for feedback

How to Demonstrate Consultation

In reporting back to the CDC, it is strongly encouraged that specific examples be provided by sharing final work product, presentations, test results, etc. giving a clear, tangible illustration of what was accomplished and learned during the development journey / experiences.

The following is an outline of what can be shared to demonstrate the development efforts made and learning results achieved.

DO: Describe what you did in completing / achieving your development plan

ASSESS: Share, if applicable, any assessments that were taken / provided related to your activities

LEARN: Explain what you felt that you were able to learn during your journey / experiences

APPLY: Give specifics examples where you have / plan to make direct application to your work

REFLECT: Review / consider things you would have done differently had you had this experience earlier