If one could list the five major functions of a quality HR department, what would those five functions be and which of those have the greatest impact on management’s opinion of HR?
This question was asked in a number of human resource groups on the professional networking site Linked In. There were approximately 41 individuals who responded to the question and provided a broad range of thoughtful, intelligent answers. This article is a summary of the thoughts and comments provided by human resource professionals and consultants. The purpose is to make the information available to all and allow additional comment and debate.
“I don’t think it’s about which HR function has the greatest influence but rather which HR person. That person most assuredly will be the one who builds credibility as being a business person first and an HR professional second.”
In reviewing all of the comments and responses, a few general themes became clear. A major theme that seems to be important is the idea of human resources as a strategic, business-focused function. Many respondents used language that implied a strategic value to the functions and capabilities of HR. Clearly, respondents felt it was very important for HR to demonstrate commercial sense, knowledge of the business, the competitive landscape and a strategic understanding of how the business needs to develop.
“I think these are all great answers. But the one I have found to have the biggest impact of an HR professional on upper management is to have an understanding of the business. By truly understanding what the company does, who they are, what services they provide and where they want to go, uppemanagement will be more likely to see HR as a business partner, and not an administrative function."
Therefore, it is perhaps reasonable to assume that there are HR functions that are clearly focused on the commercial and strategic aspects of the business. Additionally, it might follow that most HR professionals would include those in one of the top five or six functions of a quality human resource department.
As a follow up to this, many people made comments about human resource functions and the importance of those functions connecting together in support of the business.
“We have to connect the delivery of our activities with their business impact. We’re delivering talent so that clients are served by smarter people. We’re delivering motivation so that we generate better solutions for customers. We deliver employee relations so that we retain a stable and knowledgeable workforce our customer’s value. We deliver all these things so that our company’s people create superior value for stockholders.”
These comments imply a relationship between the delivery of talent and the achievement of strategic objectives. This might mean that talent acquisition and recruitment would be very important.
“I would like to say that recruiting the right person for the right place, keeping in mind business requirements and retaining him as per organization requirement is so important that he or she should be kept by any mean, i.e. motivational or tools.”
This would also imply that talent management is very important.
“I really believe talent management will have the biggest impact on the perception of HR.”
Respondents also commented on the importance of being trusted by those managers they support. The issue of trust with respect to HR is one that Quorum has seen come up in a number of ways.
Yet the negative perception of human resources by management continued to surface and some comments seem to express a deeply felt frustration.
“Unfortunately HR is yet widely considered as a support function and not an initiative (innovative) one. And the fact of the matter is that when HR tries to be initiative (innovative), the management would shoo them off by saying, "You don’t understand the market. Please do what you are asked to." Unfortunately, this is the fact! But if we don’t understand the market, then how do we provide them the best of the available human resource to do the business?”
Given the breadth and range of responses, the individual functions that were listed by respondents, were organized in their order of importance. These were then grouped into nine major categories. Only those respondents who gave a list of important functions were included. Some respondents seemed to agree with a particular list, but did not provide their own. In this case, that particular list was not included twice.
As an example of how functions were categorized, functions like change/transformation management, leadership succession, organization design, organization development and succession planning were all grouped in the category organizational development. Functions like delivering HR information, HR metrics, HRIS (human resource information systems) and HR reports for decision making, were all put in the category of analytics.
The top two issues of importance from the survey were: Talent Acquisition 83%, Business Knowledge & Strategy 72% .
For more information please go to the Quorum website at: http://quorumassociates.com/thoughtleadership/five-functions-of-a-quality-human-resource-department
If you are not in the top two categories you are really not a true HR leader.
