I want you to take a minute out of your busy day and think about how much of it is spent on managing process rather than actually managing people. Or even simply communicating with them.

Human resource departments – and more specifically benefits managers – spend most of their time doing just that. Checking forms, filing paperwork and scribbling notes in calendars. Even in this digital age, there's an awful lot of paperwork swirling around HR. It's easy to get swept up in the flotsam of fine print and forget about the people on the other side of all those forms.

Hey, I understand. We can even get that way with our own kids sometimes. I know I do. I've spent more time worried about my daughter's grade in band and my son's grades in everything, trolling through teachers' reports online, checking extra credit progress and circling deadlines on the school calendar. But there's a couple of intelligent – if slightly distracted – tweens in there and they deserve more of my attention than an accountant or lawyer can give them.