HR DEPARTMENT
Whether you’re an HR
professional, an or-ganizational
leader, a
manager dealing with HR issues or some-one
who deals with staff on a regular basis,
you’re working in HR and you’re making HR
decisions.
HR decisions might focus on an individ-ual
employee, organizational HR policy or
the wider corporate strategy, but in the end,
all HR decisions affect people. It’s HR deci-sions
that keep leaders, managers and em-ployees
up at night. These are the choices
at the heart of a business, choices that mat-ter,
because it’s people that create and sus-tain
business.
Because outcomes of HR decisions are
important to the people and organizations
they impact, you need a clear model to
make these decisions. You also need a sim-ple
way to explain your decision-making
process and real-life outcomes.
If you want to simplify your HR decisions
and their explanations, the method you’re
looking for is the Decision Triangle™. All you
have to do is choose three factors that influ-ence
your decision, draw a triangle and la-bel
the corners with these three factors.
Just as it’s easier to fill in the details of a
tender when you have a template, it’s easier
to frame and discuss complicated HR deci-sions
when you begin with the same tem-plate
every time you encounter a decision.
Ask yourself, “Which three elements of
this decision do I need to balance to get a
good outcome?” When you balance three
elements, you’ve already raised the deci-sion
discussion above the level of simply
meeting the needs of one party (i.e,. mak-ing
an employee happy, perhaps at the ex-pense
of others), or focusing on one key
resource (i.e., minimizing costs). When
you begin considering three key, interrelat-ed
but competing elements that need to be
balanced in the outcome, it’s easier to reach
a sustainable solution.
Laying out decision criteria as a trio of
competing elements and allowing everyone
involved to see the problem as a simple tri-angle
adds a level of simplicity to negotia-tions
and discussions.
Starting your analysis by framing the
decision within the triangle requires ev-eryone
involved to agree on three critical
elements. These factors become the accept-able
boundaries of dealing with the prob-lem
before you begin discussing solutions.
People will begin to move away from their
own strongly held positions, toward a more
open, transparent process.
When first considering an HR decision, it
may seem overwhelmingly difficult to bal-ance
all of the factors and find a solution
that satisfies all of the competing interests.
Once you isolate three main factors, solu-tions
seem possible.
The Decision Triangle™ can help you
through the hiring process by provid-ing
a way to consider the decision with-in
a framework of three key elements. You
can use it to screen applicants, as a frame-work
for discussing which applicants are
MARYSUPERSTUDIO/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Make Better
HR Decisions
using the
Decision
Triangle™
Taking critical factors into account will help
you make the best choices for your people
By Leah Knibbs, Knibbs/associates HR Consulting
saskheavy.ca | Quarter 2 2017 | Think BIG 57
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