Title: HR Strategy: Business Focused Individually Centred
Author: Paul Kearns
Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
ISBN: 0750657685
Price: £21.99
Review by: Denis W Barnard
For some time now, Paul Kearns has contributed some very stimulating articles in various management and HR journals. In this book, he sets out to clarify the direct lines of sight needed to ensure that the HR and Business strategies are entwined in the same strand of DNA, and along the way comments quite unequivocally on some of the perceptions of what is deemed to be “HR strategy” and some of the current fads that are considered to be part of it.
The first third of this work devotes time to looking at what is currently happening in the name of HR strategy, and questioning its validity, its effectiveness, and whether it is in fact what it purports to be. Competencies, best practice and much of HR academia come under severe scrutiny, as do popular conceptions about training and development:
“Organisations need good leaders, so they send their top people on Leadership development programmes. When they return there is an assumption that these managers have developed some leadership capability that they did not previously possess. In other words, physically attending the programme is read as an increase in leadership capability. I suppose the same argument would suggest Manchester United supporters must all be better footballers than supporters of Darlington.”
The rest of the book examines the various desired results, and compiles a route map from scratch of how to get there.
Kearns makes a solid case for HR strategy founded on Value Creation, Organisation Design and a systemic approach to Human Resources strategy that percolates its principles throughout an organisation, taking examples such as Toyota in the Motor Manufacturing industry, and why they create more relative value than their rivals such as Ford.
A diagrammatic model is shown that should provide clues to those who wish to pursue this line of progress, together with some very engaging appendices for self-examination.
Paul Kearns has produced a gem of a book, accessible, written without jargon and with a logical and analytical challenge to much of what is happening in HR departments today.
As the cover states, this is “…a mandatory read for anyone with HR in their job title”. This is not going to make comfortable reading for many senior HR people, either on the Board or aspiring to it, and I would advise them to get hold of this before the CEO or the Finance Director, or risk facing some very awkward questions.
For anyone setting out on a career in HR this is an indispensable handbook, and I await his next work with anticipation.
