HR – Human Resources, or Hopeless Recycling (of tired old ideas)

Great innovators find dark corners, where the light of innovation rarely reaches. One of those dark corners is what is known as Human Resources, the function in companies that manages and develops talent. It is, in many cases, the dark side of the moon. HR managers are among the first to be fired in a downturn, even though managing people, talent and morale is perhaps the most crucial area of management in hard times. 

Why?

In my experience, HR executives rise in the ranks through the silo of organizational development, and rarely acquire the business acumen and strategic insights that make them a true part of the senior management team. I advise all my HR friends to do many horizontal moves and deployments, to gain understanding of the business, not just the people. 

What might be an innovation in HR?

Two ideas
1. Drop the name, forever and ever, of HR. Call yourselves Human Capital. Because people are indeed human capital, and are more important for most organizations than physical and financial capital. And capital, incidentally, depreciates, and needs reinvestment and modernizing. An HC department will from first principles build an investment program, and will prove, based on Return on Investment, that the investment is justified and pays high return. An HC department will invest in its people. An HR department is often viewed simply as the place where green slips and redundancy notices are formulated and managed. 

2. Reframe your hiring procedure. Hiring is among the most crucial decisions made by the organization, even at low levels. In this procedure, prospective new hires are subjected to questionnaires, tests and interviews, some more relevant and thorough than others.

Why not reframe this procedure? Why not first ask the application to interview the company? Is this a good company? Does it suit my needs? My passion? Will I learn and grow. Ask your applicants to interview you! I believe you will learn far more from their questions, than you may learn from your own.