HR Consulting Skills

NASA HR University
January 16,2008
Stephanie Spence Diamond
Human Capital Strategist
NASA Headquarters
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Human Resources Management Division

Objectives
Identify the key skills needed for effective HR
consulting
Explore the 5 phases of the consulting process
Elements of a successful entry meeting
Effective requests and responses
How to say No when you must
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What is a Consultant?
Client: What time is it?
Consultant: What time do you want it to
be?

What is a Consultant?
Client: What time is it?
Consultant: Give me your watch and I
will tell you.

Consultant vs. Client/Manager

A consultant is a person in a position to have some
influence over an individual, a group, or an organization,
but who has no direct power to make changes or
implement programs. HR professionals serve as
consultants by planning, recommending, assisting or
advising in a variety of matters.
Every time you give advice to someone who is in the
position to make the choice, you are consulting.
A client/manager is someone who has direct control over
the action and is the recipient of the consultants advice.

Some Common Areas Clients

Want/Need Consultants For:
A study of a specific business problem
Recommendations on how to solve a
problem
A training program designed and
conducted
Personal advice and support
Other/specific examples?
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Three Consulting Models

Consultant as a pair of hands - Purchase of
Information
Consultant as the expert - Doctor-Patient
This is often a role that HR consultants play in
day-to- day work roles

Consultant as a collaborative partner Process

Consulting
This is the model we should aspire to as true
HR professionals
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Interventions
The goal or end product of any consulting activity
Two types of interventions

Any change in the line organization of a structural,

policy or procedural nature
A new compensation package
A new reporting process

Results in one (or more) persons in the line

organization learning something new

How to access and attract quality candidates

How to implement progressive discipline to correct
inappropriate conduct
How to conduct performance evaluations

Three Needed Skills for Effective HR

Consultation

Technical Skills:

Interpersonal Skills:

Need to know what the person is talking about

Need to have some technical expertise in one (or more) subject matter area
Human Resources, business, marketing, project management, planning, analysis,
etc.
Ability to put ideas into words
Listening
Give support
Disagree reasonably to maintain the relationship
Assertiveness, Supportiveness, Confrontation, Listening, Group Process
Authenticity

Consulting Skills

Contracting: Negotiating wants; Coping with mixed motivation; Dealing with

concerns about exposure and loss of control, triangular/rectangular contracting
Diagnosis: Surfacing layers of analysis, dealing with political climate; resisting
the urge for complete data; seeing the interview as an intervention.
Feedback: Funneling data; identifying and working with different forms of
resistance; presenting personal and organizational data
Decision-making: Running group meetings; focusing on here and now choices;
not taking it personally

The 5 Phases of Consulting

Each consultation, whether it lasts 10 minutes
or 10 months goes through 5 phases :

Entry and Contracting

Data Collection and Analysis/Discovery
Feedback and the Decision to Act
Implementation
Evaluation, Extension, Termination
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Phase One: Entry and Contracting

The initial contact with the client about the project/issue. Keys to
success are:
Setting up the 1st meeting
Exploring what the problem is
Are you the right person to work on this issue? Who else should be
involved?
What are the clients expectations?
What are your expectations?
How do you get started?

When things go astray, its often because the initial contracting stage
was faulty.
Core transaction of any consulting contract is the transfer of expertise
from the consultant to the client.

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Phase Two: Data Collection and

Diagnosis/Discovery
As HR Consultants, you need to come up with your own sense of the
problem. You likely need to ask a lot of questions.
Who is going to be involved in defining the problem?
What methods will be used?
What kind of data should be collected and where is it? Who else do I
need to talk to?
How long will it take?
This phase required research and dialogue with a number of
colleagues/counterparts.

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Phase Three:
Feedback and Decision to
Act/Planning
The HR Consultant must be able to reduce a large amount of
data to a manageable number of issues.

You have choices on how to involve the client in the process of

analyzing the information.
During feedback, there is often resistance to the data. You must
detect and handle this resistance before you can help move the
client to an appropriate decision about how to proceed. Dont
resist resistance call it out and try to understand it.
You should set the ultimate goals for the project with the client
and select the best action steps/interventions.

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Phase Four: Implementation

This involves carrying out the planning of the previous
step.
Often falls entirely on the line organization.
Can take a variety of forms and different degrees of
involvement.
Focuses on 2 aspects:
The technical work using your particular expertise
Building ongoing support to maintain the business or
technical change you are planning
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Phase Five:
Evaluation, Extension, Termination
Evaluate the main event/implementation.
Hold a lessons learned meeting with the client.
Determine if there will be an extension of the project/process to a
larger segment of the organization.
Sometimes it is not until after some implementation occurs that a clear
picture of the real problem emerges.
Process recycles and a new contract needs to be discussed.

If implementation is a huge success/failure, termination of further

involvement may be next.

Termination should be considered a legitimate and important part of the

consultation.
If done well, can provide important learning and keep the door open for
future engagements.

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Results Sought

Utilize your expertise;

Implement your recommendations;
Engage in more of a partnership role with clients;
You want to avoid no win consulting situations;
Develop internal commitment in your clients;
Receive support from clients;
Increase the leverage you have on clients;
Establish more trusting relationships with clients.

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Elements of a Successful Entry

Meeting

Set a welcoming/open tone for the discussion.

Make arrangements by phone follow up with email.

Ask lots of questions:

What do you want to discuss? Describe the issue.

Who is the client for this project?
Who else will be at the meeting? What are their roles?
How much time will we have?
Discuss the boundaries of the work.
Do you know that you want to begin this project or are we going to
discuss whether we do anything at all?
What are the Client wants/constraints the HR Consultant
wants/constraints?
State clearly what you need and want from the client to make it work.
Be cautious about the results you alone will deliver.

Do you homework ahead of time Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!

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Clarification Questions

Tell me more about.?

What have you tried?
What choices are available to you?
What are the first next steps?
Who will do what by when?
What is your next step?
What is your desired outcome?
What are our measures of success?
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Effective Requests
Have you ever felt that you asked for something and ended up
feeling let down because the person you made the request of
doesnt deliver? We may hold another responsible for following
through on something they dont believe they have agreed to do.
Or others can think that of us.
The reason is frequently that we havent been clear about the 3
major elements of requests:
Name exactly what you action you want.
Specify whom you want it from.
State the conditions of satisfaction

Standards of completeness;
Cost;
Number of people involved;
Timeframe;

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Getting Proper Replies

There are only four proper replies that you should
accept- or give to a request:

Accept
Decline
Counter offer
Commit to reply later

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How to Deal with Non-Responses

Non-responses

Ill look into it.

Thats a great idea.
Ill try.
Ill make it a priority.
Thats outside my control, but Ill see what I can do.
As soon as I can get to it.

Dealing with non-responses:

Be aware of the difference between acknowledgement and
commitment.
Gracious persistence
Ill see what I can do. Does that mean you will do it?

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How to Say No When You Must

Know what you can and cant do. Get clear with yourself whether you need
to say yes or no.
Be gracious. Do what you can to cushion the blow.
Take your time. Saying no usually takes longer than saying yes. Do not be
abrupt. Do not hurry.
Dont say No via e-mail. People need a more personal contact when receiving
a no.
Explain why you must say no. A no is not a no without justification or
explanation.
Make the customer feel you are on the same side. Talk in terms of we
rather than you or me.
Say no to everyone the same way. With total honesty and total kindness.
Be persistent with your no. Dont be intimidated.
Yet be open to new facts, logic, and reasoning. Yield only to objective criteria,
not the will of the client.
Hold to the issue. Do not make up excuses or let the customer change the
issue.
Offer real alternatives. Dont leave the disappointed client hanging with a
simple no. I wish I could do that for you, but unfortunately I cant. Here are
some things, though, that I can do

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Case Study
The Technical Division wants to
reactivate/enhance its intern program,
particularly in the science/engineering areas.
The head of the organization has recently joined
NASA from another federal agency which had a
very active outreach and recruitment program.
How would you consult with this organization to
develop and implement a recruitment approach
and strategy?
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In Summary
HR Professionals function as process consultants every
day
You have learned some tips about being effective
collaborative consultants
We can also apply these tips in our daily interactions
with each within HRMD as clients to each other
Primary resource: Flawless Consulting A Guide To
Getting Your Expertise Used by Peter Block

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