WHY CAN'T HR POSITION ITSELF AS A MAIN BUSINESS FUNCTION?

Posted 12th Dec 2018 by Impeccable HR

Human resources is the people science and the most complex as it deals with the most uncertain creatures i.e. we humans.

Still, the HR department that is responsible for reward and recognition for other departments is not getting the due recognition for itself!

“Why the Indian HR Ecosystem lags behind the HR ecosystems of developed countries?”

Let’s dig deeper & try to understand…

The impacts of globalization in the industry are continuously evolving and consequently pushing all work functions to become in line. Whereas the primary functions like sales and tech are the first ones to get aligned, it poses a lot of challenges for secondary functions like HR to match up the same.

Sadly, following a study, 51% of companies are linking business impact to HR programs. In addition, 60% believe in holding HR accountable for not just talent, but also business outcomes. This indicates that almost half of the HR industry is still in the support/administration mindset.

Also, The Hindu (Sep’14) stated that 18% of senior leaders say senior HR professionals have no involvement in business strategy at all. And these include the people at the level of CHROs and Director HRs.

This concludes two things either HR doesn’t project them as a business function or is not mentally ready to align with business function.

The possible solution could be the top leaders aligning the KPI and KRAs of HRs to the business objectives of the organization. Further, it requires reviews to ensure the proper execution which is mostly lacking in the organization.

Another reason that one of the top HR consulting firms found is that the HR doesn’t relate itself to the business scenarios the way they should do to suffice their role. They believe their tasks are mundane, and therefore, they do not feel the need to update themselves with the current case studies which are, of course, costing a lot and creating a gap in becoming a complete business function. This can be a possible reason for junior-level hiring, but when it comes to senior level recruitment, you need experts like executive search firms or executive headhunters or it can be the top recruitment firms that deal with this role.

However, until or unless they relate themselves with the PAT, ROI, and TAT they won’t be able to get the feather of business partners in their hats. More than culture and employee engagement plans, their employer branding should focus on the company’s market share, upcoming projects, and company’s growth plans.

In ET Feb’2018, one of the reports claimed that more than 30 HR leaders have quit joining another company in the past six months which is highly shocking as the salaries at these levels are highly competitive. Though the issues they stated were more of cultural and expectation mismatch it strongly points towards the lack of stakeholder management due to shorter stints than 6 months.

HR can align themselves with the expectations of the business heads of the respective organizations so that they can reach their goals in a more structured manner. Most of the HR failures are believed to be directly or indirectly linked to misalignment with the business heads.

As per one of the leading Recruitment process outsourcing firms Head, it is something to ponder about and make the HR department more effective.

Still, there is a long way to go for HRs to increase their score!

Pankaj Minglani

Principal Consultant & Director

Impeccable HR Consulting Pvt. Ltd