How To Set Better Boundaries as a People Team (Part 1 of 3)

Step 1 - Clarify the scope of your role

Heads up- This 3-parter is for you if any of the following are true:

• You and your team are stuck in 'people pleaser' mode and are stretched thin

• There's murmurings about your team like: "what do they even do?" / "How does HR/People team spend their time?"

• You are struggling to articulate the value of your team to the business

• You are struggling to communicate how you operate so that expectations from other teams on your time are managed

Resonate on some level? Let’s dive in together…

Setting boundaries isnt about not being helpful. But I’ve lost count of the number of people teams I’ve worked with over the years who suffer from a couple of things:

1. A lack of clarity on the scope of their role & team

2. A tendency to be ‘people pleasers’

Combine these two things, and you have a real problem on your hands. You’ll likely end up doing favours for everyone else and not spending enough time on things that actually impact.

So How Do You Break This Cycle?

Ok so there’s broadly three things I think you need to do here to have any chance of fixing this, and I’m going to break these down over this 3-part series.

1. Clarify the scope of your role (Covered here)

2. Align as a people team, and share with your org

3. Analyse & course-correct

Clarifying The Scope Of Your Role

TL;DR you want to:

• Align with your Founder/CEO on core responsibilities

Here’s how I would do it...

use your next 1:1 as a chance to get on the same page with your Founder/CEO/Line Manager. But put some time in first on pre-reflections yourself.

I’d be wanting to understand just how aligned we are upfront so checking their expectations against your own is really crucial here, rather than just blindly asking them for direction.

Think about:

• Your Principle accountabilities

• Your primary/secondary priorities

• Goals & Objectives?

• How should your time be spent & allocated?

• What’s your budget? (Many don’t know this)

• What shouldn’t you be doing as a people team?

That last one’s critical. Strategy & clarity of role is just as much about the things you don’t do. That helps others to fully understand too.

Screengrab from our Setting Boundaries Playbook which you can access here (www.openorg.fyi/membership)

If you’re struggling with role clarity right now, see what you can do to focus on walking out of your next 1:1 with answers to some of the above bulletpoints.

If you can, that will set you up perfectly to move onto Step 2, which is all about aligning with the rest of your people team (if you’re lucky to have one!) but also publishing a team charter & people roadmap that helps others in the business better understand your role.

📔 If you want a much deeper solution to boundary setting then you should check our Setting Boundaries Playbook, available via Open Org’s Paid Subscription here (£120/year), which gives you access to things like:

• 12x People & Culture Playbooks including this one (Plus new ones each quarter)

• Discounts on HR tech & services partners in the startup space

• Discounts on personal development opportunities (Digital courses & Cohorts)

• Priority access to Open Org products & offerings (Slack community & Advisory support)

Feel free to check it out here: www.openorg.fyi/membership