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Roadmap to Strategic Hr: Turning a Great Idea into a Business Reality
Roadmap to Strategic HR is a sorely needed prescription for achieving strategic focus in complex organizations. Drawn from the author's more than 25 years of experience and insights as an HR practitioner at Hallmark and other companies, the book outlines a 10-step, results-oriented plan for making the transition. It helps you integrate top-quality tactical work with innovative internal systems - talent systems, training systems, reward systems, or work processes - that will meet the strategic business demands of your organization.
270 pages, Hardcover
First published September 23, 2005
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February 21, 2012
Roadmap to Strategic HR: Ralph Christensen
Central Truths
1. Must have culture where all employees understand how their work impacts the customer.
2. Service workers will represent 88% of U.S. workforce by 2025.
3. Too few HR professionals have developed the business skills, combined with more sophisticated HR domain skills, to add the needed value to complex business problems.
4. Investment in HR department should not be made so that someone else can do all of the people work.
5. HR department should enable managers to better fulfill their responsibilities in managing people.
6. Traditional HR activities: hiring, salary surveys, compensation design, employee relations, benefits administration, must be done well. Does not generally give an organization competitive advantage.
7. Strategic HR focuses on the path between human talent and winning in the marketplace. Looks at people as a critical asset to be leveraged in the creation of value.
8. All HR work must be directly connected to the business strategy and customer needs.
9. Line management is responsible for HR work in the organization.
10. The human factor of an organization and how effectively it is managed make a significant difference to the financial success of the enterprise.
11. Every business issue (problem or opportunity) is a symptom of deeper human or organizational issues (sales are off; profitability is down, lost touch with customer). Whatever the symptom, there is a human or organizational solution at its core, must have ability to see the HR implications in every business issue.
12. HR functional leader should never be viewed as the person who ultimately is responsible for all the people work in the organization.
13. To be successful, VP-HR needs to understand the marketplace, product offerings, technology, and investment strategy to the same degree as all other executives at the table.
14. Line pulls HR work, HR never pushes HR work.
15. Goals reflect what you want to achieve while strategies reflect how you plan to achieve them.
16. Talent is the engine behind the creation of all value. It is the source that creates value.
17. Leaders must genuinely support their own development and that of others in the organization if they are to have any real impact on the creation of value.
18. Strategic employee relations focuses on development of stronger, more capable employees to meet customer and company needs – do what is needed to develop and keep highly talented, committed employees and keeps effective and balanced partnership of HR with management and employees.
19. Fostering an expectation of longevity as a commitment with few expectations that the employee will change/adapt is dangerous to organization – encouraged worker to have an outdated set of skills.
20. Having the right workforce will be one of the most important aspects of HR in the future. Will introduce exciting new ways to think about the relationship between the employee and the organization.
21. Every business organization exists in some business environment.
22. Strategic direction for people and organizational issues should be management’s decision, not HR’s.
23. HR powerbase is its technical expertise regarding people and organizational issues.
24. Too many workforce plans are tied to budget – assumes budget accurately reflects the strategy – views workforce solely as a cost item. Must be connected to the strategy of the organization.
Applications
1. Before changing a company’s Hr focus from an administrative to a strategic approach, need to know whether company I truly open to change.
2. Focus on the needs of the business: what does management feels is needed in the human and organizational arena in order to succeed in the marketplace. What needs to be done from a HR perspective to support the business?
3. HR leaders must ensure that processes are in place to attract and retain talent over the long haul.
4. HR professional must be intimately familiar with the business environment – must understand that everything he does in his HR work must ultimately promote meeting the needs of the customer better than the competition.
5. Stay in touch with the marketplace – regularly spend time in the marketplace – must find ways to be involved in the marketplace in which business in involved.
6. Ground HR proposals in the business – needs to shift from cop to partner – must design way for management o actually own HR work.
7. Use corporate committees that reflect the five processes of the HR model. Alternatives to the committee approach (page 95).
8. Training plays useful role when it’s targeted at specific skills needed.
9. Focus on getting employees ready to meet future organizational demands rather than emphasizing lifelong employment.
10. Must take time to immerse yourself in the business – continually ask yourself what the impact of this business process is upon HR systems and processes.
11. Performance management should be about influencing the performance of the entire entity and not just that of individuals and teams.
Other Facts
1. Five fundamental HR processes: workforce planning/staffing, learning/development, organizational development, performance management, and employee relations.
2. Workforce Planning: process of fulfilling current talent needs and projecting and planning for the future talent needs.
3. Learning/Development: process to continue building existing talent.
4. Organizational Development: examines organizational processes and systems to ensure that they are aligned with business strategy.
5. Performance Management: process for managing performance; ensures organization gets the outcomes that it desires.
6. Employee Relations; focuses on the needs of individual employees – provides support so employees can work effectively and sustain their efforts over time – managing the relationship between employee and the needs of the larger organization.
7. Human Resources Plan: component of the business plan – it’s the company’s people and organizational plan – it aligns with the business plan and is owned by the senior line leader.
8. HR Department Plan; business plan of the HR department – derived from company’s HRP – purpose is to support the HRP – identified tactics necessary to fulfill the strategies in the HRP.
Central Truths
1. Must have culture where all employees understand how their work impacts the customer.
2. Service workers will represent 88% of U.S. workforce by 2025.
3. Too few HR professionals have developed the business skills, combined with more sophisticated HR domain skills, to add the needed value to complex business problems.
4. Investment in HR department should not be made so that someone else can do all of the people work.
5. HR department should enable managers to better fulfill their responsibilities in managing people.
6. Traditional HR activities: hiring, salary surveys, compensation design, employee relations, benefits administration, must be done well. Does not generally give an organization competitive advantage.
7. Strategic HR focuses on the path between human talent and winning in the marketplace. Looks at people as a critical asset to be leveraged in the creation of value.
8. All HR work must be directly connected to the business strategy and customer needs.
9. Line management is responsible for HR work in the organization.
10. The human factor of an organization and how effectively it is managed make a significant difference to the financial success of the enterprise.
11. Every business issue (problem or opportunity) is a symptom of deeper human or organizational issues (sales are off; profitability is down, lost touch with customer). Whatever the symptom, there is a human or organizational solution at its core, must have ability to see the HR implications in every business issue.
12. HR functional leader should never be viewed as the person who ultimately is responsible for all the people work in the organization.
13. To be successful, VP-HR needs to understand the marketplace, product offerings, technology, and investment strategy to the same degree as all other executives at the table.
14. Line pulls HR work, HR never pushes HR work.
15. Goals reflect what you want to achieve while strategies reflect how you plan to achieve them.
16. Talent is the engine behind the creation of all value. It is the source that creates value.
17. Leaders must genuinely support their own development and that of others in the organization if they are to have any real impact on the creation of value.
18. Strategic employee relations focuses on development of stronger, more capable employees to meet customer and company needs – do what is needed to develop and keep highly talented, committed employees and keeps effective and balanced partnership of HR with management and employees.
19. Fostering an expectation of longevity as a commitment with few expectations that the employee will change/adapt is dangerous to organization – encouraged worker to have an outdated set of skills.
20. Having the right workforce will be one of the most important aspects of HR in the future. Will introduce exciting new ways to think about the relationship between the employee and the organization.
21. Every business organization exists in some business environment.
22. Strategic direction for people and organizational issues should be management’s decision, not HR’s.
23. HR powerbase is its technical expertise regarding people and organizational issues.
24. Too many workforce plans are tied to budget – assumes budget accurately reflects the strategy – views workforce solely as a cost item. Must be connected to the strategy of the organization.
Applications
1. Before changing a company’s Hr focus from an administrative to a strategic approach, need to know whether company I truly open to change.
2. Focus on the needs of the business: what does management feels is needed in the human and organizational arena in order to succeed in the marketplace. What needs to be done from a HR perspective to support the business?
3. HR leaders must ensure that processes are in place to attract and retain talent over the long haul.
4. HR professional must be intimately familiar with the business environment – must understand that everything he does in his HR work must ultimately promote meeting the needs of the customer better than the competition.
5. Stay in touch with the marketplace – regularly spend time in the marketplace – must find ways to be involved in the marketplace in which business in involved.
6. Ground HR proposals in the business – needs to shift from cop to partner – must design way for management o actually own HR work.
7. Use corporate committees that reflect the five processes of the HR model. Alternatives to the committee approach (page 95).
8. Training plays useful role when it’s targeted at specific skills needed.
9. Focus on getting employees ready to meet future organizational demands rather than emphasizing lifelong employment.
10. Must take time to immerse yourself in the business – continually ask yourself what the impact of this business process is upon HR systems and processes.
11. Performance management should be about influencing the performance of the entire entity and not just that of individuals and teams.
Other Facts
1. Five fundamental HR processes: workforce planning/staffing, learning/development, organizational development, performance management, and employee relations.
2. Workforce Planning: process of fulfilling current talent needs and projecting and planning for the future talent needs.
3. Learning/Development: process to continue building existing talent.
4. Organizational Development: examines organizational processes and systems to ensure that they are aligned with business strategy.
5. Performance Management: process for managing performance; ensures organization gets the outcomes that it desires.
6. Employee Relations; focuses on the needs of individual employees – provides support so employees can work effectively and sustain their efforts over time – managing the relationship between employee and the needs of the larger organization.
7. Human Resources Plan: component of the business plan – it’s the company’s people and organizational plan – it aligns with the business plan and is owned by the senior line leader.
8. HR Department Plan; business plan of the HR department – derived from company’s HRP – purpose is to support the HRP – identified tactics necessary to fulfill the strategies in the HRP.
December 11, 2010
I'll come back and write a review sometime...read this with all of my team...amazing discussions and development...definitely worth reading...dry in places...some chapters more impactful than others.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews