The CEO’s HR Imperative
What happens when a renowned CEO empowers an enlightened, ambitious human resources leader to imagine a revolutionary future model that turns the HR group into a powerful secret weapon? That HR “department” becomes a business, bringing the company's other units to new heights by unleashing the power of the talent within the organization like never before.
We believe that HR transition — let’s call it the “revo-evolution” — is starting to happen, and it will drive better talent decisions within the company to create an edge over competitors.
In a recent CEO Summit we asked CEOs whether HR had an impact on their firm’s performance over the last year. Few hands went up. That has to change.
At the moment, of course, many HR departments still perform mainly administrative functions. They’re largely underfunded, running operations and processes that have often not changed in a decade or more. Most CEOs ask and expect HR to help recruit, create succession plans, manage leadership development plans, and that’s about it.
At the same time, CEOs desperately seek some type of advantage that can create breakout performance. Yet even as CEOs look to robotics, artificial intelligence, advanced customer analytics as potential answers, HR remains largely unchanged. It doesn’t make much sense: Talent and compensation are generally a company’s largest expense, but CEOs don’t expect much from HR and certainly don’t see it as the catalyst for breakout performance.
HR, if run strategically, can unleash the true power of the talent locked inside the people in their organizations. It’s an area that can help improve the execution and innovation abilities of every other business unit. Enlightened HR leaders and courageous CEOs are fundamentally remaking HR into a business unit that thinks like a business, acts like a business, is funded like a business and, thus, will undoubtedly have high impact on performance and profits as never before. Being mindful that “revolution” is highly disruptive and today's work still needs to be done, and “evolution” is too slow to offer competitive advantage, what they’re doing feels like “revo-evolution” — making bold changes thoughtfully while completely redesigning the way HR operates and thinks about its mission. Here’s how to go about gently blowing up the current HR model.
- See more at: http://www.kornferry.com/institute/The-CEOs-HR-imperative?all-topics#sthash.TAsB5k57.dpuf
Fantastic article!
There is the potential for a real multiplier effect here: unlock the potential of your HR people and function, who in turn unlock the dormant potential of employees throughout the organization. And it's a potential that already exists - largely untapped - in many organizations.