I had a bit of a humorous moment as I was reading this article from Mercer.com. While besides the point of this post, the Mercer page starts out saying:<\/p>\n
The survey reveals that despite some progress, nearly 60% of finance executives still view HR as a cost rather than a strategic partner; and 80% of HR leaders believe the function is not credited with delivering any value to organisational performance. ((Theaker, Mike and Vernon, Philip. July 31, 2006\/ \u201cRemoving the Barriers to Success in HR Transformation.\u201d Retrieved from www.mercer.com on December 21, 2006.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It\u2019s entirely possible that only I found this humorous, but I thought to myself that if 60% of fianc\u00e9 executives erroneously view HR as a cost, 80% of HR executives also erroneously view finance as a cost. The truth of the matter is that neither of us really know what the other does which has led to all sorts of battles over the years between not only finance and HR, but payroll and HR as well.<\/p>\n
OK. So on with the point.<\/p>\n
Theaker and Vernon go on to highlight three skills needed for success in HR transformation. These are:<\/p>\n
\n
- The skills of the function. While HR has strong traditional administrative skills, it needs additional expertise to broaden its contribution across the business.<\/li>\n
- The use and integration of technology. HR has invested significantly in IT but has yet to demonstrate a real return on investment or quality improvement.<\/li>\n
- The role and engagement of leadership. Many business leaders underestimate HR\u2019s potential to contribute to business performance, which is exacerbated by HR managers failing to drive and sell the changes. ((Ibid))<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The skills of the function. I\u2019ve been arguing on this site for 2 years now that HR needs to be able to speak the language of finance, operations, sales, and anyone else that has strategic influence over the business. We still see ourselves as HR people, and even though we think we\u2019re getting more strategic, we\u2019ve only been getting more strategic as it concerns ourselves and the workforce. The sooner we start to see the correlations between our workforce management strategies and start integrating our plans with the rest of the business, the better off we\u2019ll be and the better off the entire business will be.<\/p>\n
The use and integration of technology. HR has not yet shown an HRI or quality improvement? Oh I beg to differ. Perhaps this is best left to my very ROI\/TCO able contributor Donald Glade, or perhaps even one of the hundreds of HR technology vendors can help me out here. But HR technologies such as web self service, workflow and other types of process management, and even the core customer service technologies buried in call centers such as IVR\u2019s have had huge dollar impacts to our businesses. Mercer should know this and I assume should have studies saying this as well as anyone out there.<\/p>\n
The role and engagement of leadership. I\u2019m not sure where to go with this one as Theaker and Vernon go on later in the paper to talk about leadership and governance rather than engaging senior executives to the HR cause. My point however, is that they were at the very least headed in the right direction. No HR strategy will find success without the clear and unwavering support of senior executives to both support and publicize the efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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