Who’s got an HR strategy? Probably the greatest myth in the HR world is the concept of HR strategy. Everyone says they have one but when you ask what it looks like it looks like everyone else’s. The same attempt to be an ‘employer of choice’, the same old competence framework, using the same ‘best practices’ as everyone else (and we know what the Charter says about those – see Parts 2 to 4).
The real irony here is that the whole point of strategy is to be different – not the same. Every business tries to differentiate itself as much as possible from their competitors. It is their business strategy that attempts to make that differentiation clear in order to give them an advantage. HR strategy has to serve the same purpose. Having an HR strategy means managing your people differently (i.e. better) than your competitors, otherwise why bother?
What most HR people call ‘strategy’ is really just a collection of HR policies (e.g. employee relations, rewards, retention) but ask anyone what each of these policies contributes to the business and you are immediately led into the other key aspect of HR strategy, its inherently holistic and indivisible nature. There is no point paying top decile salaries if employees do not feel engaged by the organisation. No point trying to foster positive and constructive employee relations unless managers can see past their immediate short term tasks and operational pressures. HR strategy should be the glue that holds all of these policies together.
Finally, the biggest question of all. What is your HR strategy worth – in £’s? How much difference will it make to your organisation over the next 5 years? Where are the charts that will predict what will happen to costs, revenue and customer service?
When you are satisfied that you can answer these key questions then you may just have an HR strategy. But you will be an extremely rare HR professional – and probably worth your weight in gold. In part 13 we will explore what real HR strategy means for the future of the profession at large, or indeed, whether the present HR profession has any future if it stays as it is.
New HR Charter series
You can also read all the debates around the New HR Charter and add your own comments by clicking on the links below.
The New HR Charter – Introduction
The New HR Charter Part 1 – Does HR have a reputation problem?
The New HR Charter Part 2 – What does best practice mean in HR?
The New HR Charter: Part 3 – Do competencies and 360 work?
The New HR Charter: Part 4 – The opposite of best practice?
The New HR Charter: Part 5 – HR Causality – which way does the arrow point?
The New HR Charter: Part 6 – Employer of choice?
The New HR Charter: Part 7 – HR professionals: GP’s, consultants, homeopaths or quacks
The New HR Charter: Part 8 – Politically correct yes – but is HR more effective?
The New HR Charter: Part 9 – Unions have no part to play
The New HR Charter: Part 10 – Where does HR go after outsourcing?
2 Responses
HR Stratgey – whats the point?
As ever Paul is very thought provoking. I can see what he means when he says that many organisations have so-called HR strategies which are no more than a set of policies etc. But I wasn’t so convinced with the assertion that HR stratgey is about managing people differently. Wouldn’t managing people “better” be a good thing? I also thought Martin’s points very worthwhile. A definition of strategy that seems to work for me is a description of overall direction for an organisation, setting out goals and objectives and a series of timeframes that enable people to know what must be achieved and by when. Its a lot more than just a project plan, because a strategy should also have the guts of what an organisation will NOT be focussing on as well as what it will. Personally, I don’t think HR should have a “strategy” as such. Those of you familiar with strategy mapping as a technique of process, will know that the People part of it is only one of the lenses through which organisational strategy should be viewed. This being the case the purpose of a so-called HR “strategy” is to equip the organisation (capability in the broadest people sense) and help create the environement (culture and climate) in order to deliver the organisational strategy and execute the business plans.
Paul always gets us thinking about measurement, and its a valid point. Whats confusing is that regardless of taskforces, approaches etc to measuring human capital / assets, the fact is that there is an overwhelming body of evidence in the business world that says companies ARE measuring the ‘value’ of human capital. Some organisations are actually measuring the contribution that HR functions are bringing to the business. This being the case one is left feeling, why aren’t more companies doing so? As someone once said the role of HR is far too important to be left to the HR department. The so-called “HR strategy” is the responsibility of everyone in the organisation. They all have a contribution to make in making it a reality.
About 60% of my own practice work is around this area. If I were really cynical I would say thank goodness that there is so much work yet to be done.
Joe España
So true…
A strategy for this, and a strategy for that…
Well, I guess it keeps the strategy consultants off the streets, assuming that’s a good thing.
Why not keep it nice and simple and have just one strategy?
And let’s keep that nice and simple too – no more than a page, ideally much less than that. Why? So people can remember it and make sense of it and then use it for its intended purpose as they go about their daily tasks – to inform and guide their decision making so that there is a collective cohesion and a theme to these decisions.
This isn’t my definition of strategy, it’s RM Grant’s, a noted writer on strategy. For me it’s a nice simple definition that doesn’t collapse down to ‘plan’ or ‘list of goals’, like many other definitions. It also makes it easier to argue for a marketing strategy, and an operations strategy, and an HR strategy, but in having these strategies isn’t there a danger of losing focus on what is really important?
Perhaps this way we can find moer easily an answer to Paul’s killer question – what is your strategy worth?
If you want a ‘brain melt’, try thinking about something I’m sure very few Boards have considered – a strategy for making strategy…