HR's Best Practice Isn't Always Useful Practice

By Paul Marsh (not AI)

Ask most HR teams what they did last quarter and you'll get a long, impressive list. Appraisals completed. Survey issued. Policies refreshed. Training delivered. Box ticked. Now ask the managing director/CEO what's keeping them awake at night. It's rarely anywhere on that list.

That's the problem. A lot of HR activity is built around what HR thinks it should be doing, rather than what the business actually needs. It looks professional and feels responsible, but it often solves absolutely nothing.

You'll recognise these:

Annual performance appraisals
Engagement surveys
Competency frameworks
Company values posters and culture workshops
360-degree feedback
Succession planning templates
Mandatory training
Employee of the month schemes
Policies nobody reads until something goes wrong

None of these is wrong in itself - the trouble starts when they become the job, rather than a tool for doing the job.

It happens because tick-box work is safe. It's easy to measure ("100% of appraisals completed!"), it matches what the textbooks say, and nobody ever got sacked for following best practice.

But best practice for whom? It was written for an average company that doesn't exist. Yours has its own headaches: a team with sky-high turnover, managers who avoid difficult conversations, a sales target that's slipping for example.

Think about the last time an appraisal form changed a manager's behaviour. Or a values poster improved a customer's experience. If you're struggling to remember, you've got your answer. Activity isn't impact, and the business can tell the difference even when HR can't.

So flip it. Before you launch anything, ask: what business problem are we trying to solve, and how will we know it's solved?

Losing good people? Forget the engagement survey. Ask five leavers and five stayers what would make them stay, then fix the top two things.
Managers dodging tough conversations? Don't send them on a generic leadership course. Give them a simple script and let them practise it.
Appraisals a dreaded annual ritual? Keep them only if they change what happens on Monday morning. If not, bin them.

Each starts with a business result and works backwards. The test is simple: what will someone do differently at 9am tomorrow? HR earns its seat at the table by fixing things the business cares about: revenue, retention, productivity, risk. Not by producing the neatest paperwork.

So look at your HR calendar this week. For every activity, ask: which business problem does this solve? If you can't answer, you've just found your first thing to stop.