Growing up in North Florida, every house in my neighborhood had a front porch.  No one had air conditioning, so the porch was the “cool place” to hang out.

Of all the porches, my grandmother’s was the best.  Nanny lived around the corner and I loved to sit on her porch. Screened with comfortable furniture, it offered a place to talk and view the world.  From Nanny’s front porch, you could keep up with everything that was going on up and down the street.  You knew who was home; who had gone grocery shopping; who had visitors and often who was visiting.  You could wave and talk to the neighbors out for a walk and sometimes invite them in for coffee.  You knew the habits of your neighbors so well that you could tell that one of them was under the weather and cook up a pot of chicken soup to take over later.

When central air conditioning came on the scene, builders quit adding front porches to homes. Looking out at my street today and the neighbors I don’t know reminds me of what we’ve missed by not having a front porch view.

When I meet someone at a dinner or party, the conversation generally involves what we do for a living.  When I explain that I work in Human Resources, the response recently has been; “So what do you people in Human Resources really do?”   I’ll ask about their HR office and in talking realize they are asking me because they never see their HR staff.

Have we been working so hard to get a “seat at the table” with management that we’ve neglected the view from the front porch at work?  Do we still know and understand the day-to-day world of our employees?  We know the law, the rules, regulations, policies and procedures. We know the business’s vision and how HR aligns with that vision, but do we know the employees and what is important to them?

Maybe when we are not at the table with management, we could be out on the front porch; paying attention to what’s happening around us; greeting people and sometimes inviting them in for coffee.   If we do, we will be better able to serve our business and have fewer people wondering “what do you really do?”