Not Everyone Can Be HR — Resilience and Trust Set It Apart

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Nicole Belyna: HR isn't just about being nice, solving conflicts, or planning the company picnic. It's about holding the line. When systems break, people unravel, and the executive team expects clarity. Yesterday, welcome to Honest HR, where we turn real issues facing today's HR departments into honest conversations with actionable insights.

I'm your host, Nicole Belyna. Let's get honest. It's been a tough year in the workplace. SHRM's latest civility index shows incivility holding at an all time high. Two hundred twelve million uncivil acts every single day. And when tension spikes, HR becomes the shock absorber between a fraying workforce and leaders who still expect clarity, stability, and results.

That's why today's conversation digs into the real pressure points of the job, such as rebuilding trust from employees, navigating some hard moments in the workplace, and speaking the CFO's language to show HR's strategic value. Joining us is Warren Wang, founder of Double Fin, a collaborative people management and planning platform, who's seen firsthand the pressure HR leaders carry behind the spreadsheets, policies and performance metrics.

Welcome to Honest HR Warren.

Warren Wang: Thanks Nicole. Yeah, very excited to be here.

Nicole Belyna: We're excited to have you. So, in a recent newsletter that you published, not everyone can be in HR. You begin with, HR is assumed to just be good with people. For the HR leaders listening who may feel reduced to that stereotype, what do you think people still miss about the complexity and the weight of this role?

Warren Wang: Yeah, totally. This is a great question. I do think that people really think of HR as being kind of people person, right? Being empathetic, good at the listening, resolving conflict, all of that. But I have been talking to many HR leaders worldwide. I mean, just getting to know more about what HR does, right?

I feel there are a lot of misconceptions from both people outside of HR community. Also people within the HR community. Right. I think that's really something probably should, people should change, try to change on that.

Many of observation, one observation I have is that it really surprised me, like given maybe for people who don't know me, I spend most of my career in finance. Right? I never spent one day in HR. Even though I'm doing a CEO now, it's, I take some responsibility on HR, but I'm not a traditional HR person at all. But when I talk to people about it, one thing really surprised me is that HR is so heavy with processes and I think HR is probably the most process heavy function across every function the company has. Right.

And that's really coming surprised me because I was in finance. I always thought finance, very process heavy function, deal with a lot of things. But then when I talk to each other, I realize they're doing a lot of things right. Let's say benefits, enrollment, onboarding, offboarding, performance management, you know, workforce planning, all of that many processes touching a lot of people, potentially everybody across the company.

And this is something kind of, I didn't realize, I always thought people think about it. Yeah. People person, right? But this kind of process, a heavy aspect of HR profession. Something. I feel like people not understanding that enough. Particularly for people outside. Right?

And also other than also being a people person. Also HR deal with a lot of legal compliance things as well, right? Like still coming back to finance. Well, we don't actually talk too much about legal thing or many other function. They don't really touch that kind of legal compliance. But for HR, the increasing complexity of employment law, labor law, regulation, right? Make this very critical for HR's job as well.

So there are not attorneys, but they have to understand the potential consequences for what they're doing. Right. And they, this is, could be even part of their daily work. So in general, right, we are thinking about the HR as really combination of many different aspect, right? Like a process, like being people person and those dealing with kind of legal compliance aspect.

That's a very, very, I think it's a very complicated. A very difficult job to do. That is something I feel most of the leaders or most people don't recognize or don't realize that until really get it deep into this, I think this is something very important for HR themself to understand this, right? Understand their value, and also for them to share and then communicate this to even, you know, the leaders they're working with, or the other, you know, people outside of the community.

Nicole Belyna: Really, really good points. You're right, it's a, there is a focus on process, but then there is the expectation that HR people have to be good with people. You know, they're people people. And sometimes when you're so focused on the process, people can almost be a little disappointed by your lack of people skills. Right.

So, got another question for you. As stewards of both the employee experience and organizational performance, HR plays a critical balancing role and that can put us at the center of any trust reset. Right. So, what would you say are the concrete steps, the things that you can do on any day that help rebuild trust inside an organization?

Warren Wang: Yeah. I'm definitely not an expert in HR particular kind of operations or processes, but I feel this one is not just about, you know, building trust in employees. This could apply to any other aspect, right? Let's say when you work with people, how do you build trust in, you know, in your, you know, maybe business partners, right? Or whoever collaborate with you.

So a few things I think people or HR communicator could be doing, right? I will always start with listening. Understanding your employees, their concerns, their voices, what they care about. That's super, super important. I can go back to my experiences many, many years ago when I start, like working with at Google, right? One thing they did really, really well, I think, is really listening to employees and they make you feel, they care about what you think, what you care, right?

So, one particular thing they did is like, they have this every year there's a Google guide kind of survey, employee survey. You may think like a survey, employee survey is nothing new. Right. Like every company probably does some sort of their things. Right. I love that. But I also, I personally also kind of experience that other employers I used to work with. Right.

But for many other companies I work for, I feel the survey was just like, it's just like a process. It's like, you know, it just went through. I don't know what's that going to give me. Right. I just, you know, a part of that task I have to finish. But the Google guys at the company may give me a different feeling the way they design the questions. Right. What question do they ask? How the structure make you feel they care about beyond how you perform, how you work, but also, you know. To see you as a person, right? Like a many aspect, how you do that. And they care about that.

And also the, the entire structure and the process, how they communicate, at a different level, right? It is always multiple level, like at the team level, a higher level, all the level. They will have to, you know, have the concessions to show what the kind of results, all of that, right? The different structures in entire process make you feel. They're really listening to you and that they really care, care. You as a person. That's kind of like a feeling I really feel is very important for you to trust that the company is with you right. On a lot, even in some difficult period of time. Sure.

The second one, I will, I think it would be good, is actually communicated rationales, right? So the decision, I think the word thing is actually decision made to share with people with no rationales. People think that's kind of made in the black box. But if you communicate what happened, why you are making the decision, right? What's the rationale to support that? If your employees don't agree with that, but they can see, you know, the reason you're doing this, they can feel there's a human aspect into this decision making and this can give them a much better chance to understand and to realize. Right. Or something. Right. And it's, that's also, I think, super important.

A third one of thinking is also about being consistent and authentic. And this company that I used to work with marketing a lot is that think about when you are, communicated. You have the brand, you know, sharing that with you, with, your customers, right? You have to be very careful about what messaging behind everything you are saying or doing here. Same thing as we work with the employees, right? Your decision making or maybe all the different department or different things, different processes. There is always a hidden thing behind this is what is kind of value, the company is driving. What is the message behind? You better be consistent and also be authentic, right? That's for your, for your employee to understand.

Just say for example, you're saying, telling everyone, Hey, we need to be frugal now economy is bad or whatever, right? You need to cutting cost, the cutting benefits and got people to understand in a few weeks, a few months, your leadership team went on a luxury offsite taking private jet or something and not gonna share with employees. Just imagine, right? What can messaging you are talking about, how can you build trust in that? Sure.

And the last one I'm gonna share, you just, you need to close the loop, right? Listening is good. It's a great start, but it's not the end. You need to close the loop running, maybe survey or whatever, where, hear the voice, but eventually what actions you're taking. How you're doing that, how you execute that throughout the year, how you build that maybe into something, say policy change or maybe, you know, particular things in decision, business, decision making, right? All of that. Eventually you have to close the loop. Even you say, I don't wanna do this. You have to tell your employees what you're trying to do, deal with their concern, so what they care. That's kind of my, as a somebody, somebody never spend on danger and my thoughts.

Nicole Belyna: No, and I mean, you, you're giving a, an outside of HR perspective, which is really important. And you know, I loved your last point about closing the loop because I do think, I mean all, all of your points were, are important, but the closing the loop piece is, is super important because I mean, I know I've heard from, from people who don't work in HR, you know, complain about the employee engagement survey. And so, you know, the general feel that's, that is a very quick way to, to break trust, you know, as an HR team, which is ask employees opinion and then you don't act on it. Right?

You know, eventually employees stop participating in the engagement survey, because they're like, you know, if you're not gonna do anything with. If nothing changes, you know, why, why should I bother? And really valid point about partnering with marketing, to help with some of that messaging, right? To make sure that, I mean, HR people will deliver information, but you can certainly, benefit from enlisting a communications professional to deliver it in a way that is, is authentic and will, will resonate with your employees. In a much better way. So I love those points.

So in your experience, what would separate an HR leader who stays in kind of that administrative box versus one who truly becomes indispensable to the business?

Warren Wang: Yeah, I think, I mean, first I, I would say that demonstrating a lot of things that we're talking about, even though comprise all of that, first, I wanna emphasize that doesn't mean this is not important. I think this, this actually they are the must do. Right? It's necessary. It's a foundation you have to do and to do it well. But it's more important is how to do it that efficiently. Right? And don't make it the only thing you're doing right. That's important. I want to just clarify that.

And then talking about being, you know, in indispensable to the business. I mean, of course you need to make sure you co-own the business. I think a, a good one I can resonate with then is when I think about my career in finance, what's the time I feel I'm most valuable to the business, or I feel that I feel bad. The worst. Another worst, the best about myself is, you know, I was in the FP&A, right? I financial planning and analysis.

There is always exercise as annual planning, and I work with many leaders. That's kind of the time I feel the most excited and I feel the best is because the annual planning is indifferent from some of all very, you know, transactional work or very, something happen every month, let's say months and accrual or forecast something, right? It happens every month or something like that. Any planning force or basically is, it's a time for you to think longer, think bigger, and also think very strategic. Right?

So those are kind of, I think the three things. HR leaders always thinking about how do they think longer, bigger, and the strategic. That means you don't just about think about what happens next day, next week, right? Could it be one year multiyear business? Also bigger is not just, you know, some maybe, some forms or some particular processes, but much beyond what your HR function or any particular task, but even on the business side or revenue side or cost side, or maybe even customer side or the employee side, all of that, right? What's the bigger impact and the strategic rationale to support whatever decisions, right?

And then imagine that, HR team you are working on, you know, with the employees, which is the biggest asset of any company. Those are really, really the foundation of any business outcome, any business decisions. So you are actually have a great opportunity to or co-own the business, work with your business partners and drive those results. That's kind, I think, is probably most, important things for HR leader to think about.

Nicole Belyna: Well, and you know, we started the conversation talking about how, you know, there's a lot of process in HR, right? Just by the nature of it. And I do, you know, I kind of think about, it. Sort of HR professionals earlier in their career. I've mentored, you know, along the way where oftentimes their role is very process driven. And so, you know, to their credit, they're trying to, I improve processes, you know. Make things more efficient.

You know, but I often have to remind them to what end. Right? Just because you have a, you know, so great we have a process, but is it actually helping, you know, what, are we actually solving a business problem or, you know, do you just like to see the process end to end? And so I think you brought up some really good points, you know, attaching the work to, you know, to key business. Business partners and stakeholders and ensuring that the work that we do actually, you know, links to the, the business strategy of the organization, right? Solving problems and being part of that bigger picture is, is just so critical.

So I wanna, you know, kind of switch, directions here a little bit. So one of the things that you're known for is the need for HR to speak the CFO's language, to show that investing in people isn't just an expense. Really important. What part of HR of the HR story do you think HR professionals consistently fail to communicate in financial terms?

Warren Wang: Yeah. So yeah. I, I, I have a lot of experience just working with, with HR and the working between HR and the finance. Right. I, I feel like there's some common, common things I, I don't see from financial finance perspective, right? I, I see 'em missing. One multiple. One is about kind lack of numbers.

You are talking, let's say we are finance, love, quantitative stuff, right? And when you're just throwing out some more qualitative stuff, is is hard for finance to believe in that, right? Let's say, hey, regret, attrition, reduce a lot due to HR initiatives. We are saying reduce a lot like that hurts finance. Great. Right lot. What do, so this type of lack of numbers is one.

Second is about lack of comprehensive and structural analysis. Just throw a number is also not enough. Say you do the same thing. Let's say regret, attrition, reduce, say eighteen % or whatever, right? Or something due to HR. But this could come back to the next, right? It is about how do you define regret attrition. How do you measure that? Right? What's the source of information? Is that reliable?

And then when you're talking about this particular eighteen %, whatever, is that eighteen % per quarter or per year? How do, how do, how do we see that? And yet in reduce, is that a quarter over quarter or year over year? Is there any seasonality built this right? And then can you break out by function, by region, by all of that?

So you see the point is actually you have to look at the numbers from all the different angles. Why we're doing this is that we're trying to find out, is that story or whatever you're saying, is that real? It's not driven by some factors that you know. Later on you find out it's actually can tell you a total different story, right? We do see that happen all the time. People using numbers. Could it be spin something right or give you a wrong picture of the, of the business? That happens a lot and a lot of analysis cannot survive this level of, you know, rigor or, kind of challenges, right?

But if you do, if you're showing this, you don't have to show that in your analysis, but you have that in your pocket when, let's say, when your CFO ask you this question, you show that, Hey, here's what the number says. If you do that, you just do the once. You are going to gain the confidence from CFO right away, and then they are going to trust your business, trust your decisions, trust your analysis in the future, right? So that's the second.

The third one is the third one. Maybe the first one I can say that together is about lack of strong reasoning and the connection between numbers and the story, right? This is a building kind of relationship between your numbers. What your story you want to tell there, right? Say you say this is driven by whatever, reduction in the required attrition driven by each other initiative, right? You show the numbers, but how do I know that's the case? Right? Like, not everything we not understand. Not that everything you may find exactly the straight correlation between the two, but even if you can show some indirect, you know, like a reference point, indirect relationship, the more you can throw up there. The more confidence they will have to support this, right?

So this is basically to think about from finance, but to have a very solid concrete analysis, right? Showing the numbers, showing the numbers or the analysis in a very different angles, but also showing the strong rationale or connections between numbers and the story. That's where HR can, you know, can you know, wing finance can like a mind on that.

Nicole Belyna: Great advice. So Warren, I'd love to try a fun little exercise with you. I'll throw out a couple classic workplace phrases and if you could translate them into a couple of sentences that A CFO actually wants to hear. What do you think?

Warren Wang: Yeah, that's, that sounds like a task for me.

Nicole Belyna: Cool. Okay. All right. First one, we need to improve culture.

Warren Wang: Need to improve culture. Okay. I would say from CFO perspective, I wouldn't say maybe we are potentially could be, we are seeing some leading indicators of promote performance risk, like, higher regret attrition in key roles, right? That would lower manager effective scores. More kind of employee cases. And if you don't address this, the turnover of productivity is going to get bad. And that's going to change. I mean, of course, I don't have numbers here, but, that's going to really put our, you know, business strategy, our revenue goal in kind of at the risk. And that here's a potential risk impact of that and the cost of a trend of the, versus the cost of fixing that I can show you next, on this.

Nicole Belyna: Perfect. Let's try another one. Managers need more training.

Warren Wang: Oh. My first reaction to anything like this, I, I think any CO would've hated this kind of line. Just like it's so ambiguous, right? Well, yeah. Your training and you think expensive, right? CFO hates ambiguity and also uncertainty, right? So I say managers need more training right away. What do you mean? Like manager? What managers, the what? What training, right? How to be virus specific is about, let's say maybe. Maybe as managers need some compliance training to mitigate the litigation risk or legal risks. Right. Our peer companies, they just went through some lawsuits, right? With potential cost them like a multi-million or something like that. By doing something we can, whatever, right? Or maybe sales manager have to be very, very specific about what they're talking about.

Nicole Belyna: Yeah. And then the last one, turnover is high lately.

Warren Wang: Yeah. So not, I would say maybe, turnover itself, not necessarily a bad thing. And the high or low is also a relative term. So also not a necessary good or bad either way. Right. I, just put, maybe we can say, just use one example. I could say in the last quarter, or maybe say we lost X number of high performing employees in roles that take nine months to fully ramp up to get back and replacing them will cost us roughly how much in recruiting or mean how much in revenue, how much in productivity. And if we invest in the retention here, say like, say we use the ten % of the losses here to, to change that. Right. Reduce the leakage by a certain percentage, through some manager support and maybe particular initiatives that can help us to avoid that from happening.

Nicole Belyna: Yeah. Well thank you for that advice. You know, I think we've taken some kind of problem statements, right? Just, we're kind of just blurting out these, these statements that are weighing on our mind, and you've helped us kind of think through them in a way that. You know, has some rigor behind it, has some analysis behind it. And as we've talked about earlier, is attached to, you know, how it could impact the business results. So thanks for reframing those, those statements for us.

Warren Wang: Hope best.

Nicole Belyna: So we're almost out of time, so I've got one more question for you. If you could leave HR leaders with one final piece of advice and you've given us lots of good advice today, Warren. When HR leaders are pitching future investments, whether it's training better tools, a retention program, what metrics or financial framing help turn those ideas from soft initiatives into measurable ROI?

Warren Wang: I know in my linking I talk a lot of HR has to, you know, to quantify this, but here I want share a little bit. The other side of this is that this also. Tied to my previous, I work at Google when I was at, working with marketing, right? One of the toughest question of working with marketing, I was managing the marketing finance. One of the toughest question I always got is, what is ROI of marketing investment? Very, very hard to answer is because a lot of marketing activities, they're not direct revenue generating, activities. Anything you like that is very hard.

So this what my thinking is actually what with all the business activity, think about this. The closer you are to revenue generation, the easier for you to quantify or measure. ROI. Right. The further away, the more difficult and the, for the, for the activity further away, maybe you takes, say ten steps a staff for that to translate or to go to path through to the revenue generation activity, right? So for every step you have to take your impact or, or whatever the signals is going to be diluted, it's going to add a lot of other things. Factored into here are gonna add noises.

So if you only measure that, I think about how many assumptions you have to make to measure that, to quantify that, right? And then the more assumptions that adding here, the more potential unreliable, less accurate, and the more room for people to challenge or to question the, you know, the, the softness of analysis that is. That is what I'm say is that many times I want to really, hopefully the everyone can see is that not everything can be measured in terms of revenue or ROI in the traditionally, in the traditional Right. And if you are forcing people to do this, you are basically asking people to make tons of assumptions over there with not reliable kind of like, input to support those assumptions. That, that's gonna maybe a little bit different from what you were asking, but I feel it is very important to point out of, of that, right?

But that's not the mean you shouldn't measure. It's that the, I I would give my personal example. Let, let's just say, say this. Let's say we, we will talk about like, your kids, right? You want to, you want to build some key attributes. For your kids say, want to make your kids tougher, right? Or better personality of being a better person or whatever. You are investing in some of the maybe sports or some activity, right? To train them, to educate them. Can you measure that? I don't think anybody can measure that, right? Right. By doing this, by spending this much, I'm going to improve the toughness by ten %. There's no way you can do it. Right, but does that mean you're not gonna do it? I don't think so. You are going to do it because what? Because you believe there's a strong, first of all, because first you care. Right? Second. Also, because you believe there's strong correlation between the two. Right? Between doing this. Then to, you know, to, and also building a better personality or mentality for your kid. Be believe in that. And then you are gonna work with your, you know, maybe your tolerance level, your income level, how much you can afford, things like that. You can figure out how much are willing to invest.

That would be probably applicable to many of the things we are doing here in HR side. Is that do, do you believe in some of the things you are, you are working on investing, say. If I have a high morale employee, right, highly motivated versus somebody who are totally beaten up, you know, don't like where they're working. If they're two, same person, just different mentality, different mood here. How much product do you, how much value we can see from their work? There are going to be a lot of difference, right? Do you believe in that? Right? If then, and also do you believe in, do you invest in some initiatives or something that can drive, that can motivate employee that culture? You believe that you better make some investment, and then you're talking about maybe in a particular way in your, in your business environment and how much you can afford, what are some also very important, build some very rigorous operational measurement to track that. How tight you manage this. How efficient do you run this analysis? Right? Combine that and the be case to support. That would be my approach. How to do this in a, in a simplified way.

Nicole Belyna: Great. So, I think the takeaway right, is again, having the rigor behind it and a good analysis and justification rather than, you know, focusing on kind of your traditional ROI. Perfect. Well, Warren, I wanna thank you again for sharing your insights with us.

Warren Wang: Oh, always, always my pleasure. To, to share what I think and hopefully that makes sense.

Nicole Belyna: Yeah, no, lots of great advice for us, for sure. And that's gonna do it for this week's episode of Honest HR and we will catch you next time.

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