News: HR remains "messenger" rather than co-creator of corporate strategy

Posted by catheverett in Managing people, Business lifestyle on Fri, 24/08/2012 - 15:06


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A lack of involvement in devising corporate strategy means that HR continues to be the “messenger” rather the instigator, leading to a significant misalignment between employee and business objectives, according to research.

A survey among 125 HR professionals and business managers conducted at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s HR Software Show earlier this year revealed that a huge three quarters of HR practitioners were excluded from helping to formulate business strategy.
 
This meant that, rather than being consulted on setting company goals, they were mainly used to communicate them (57%).
 
As a result, however, the study, which was undertaken by Redshift Research on behalf of outsourcing provider plusHR, found that the objectives of a tiny one in 10 workers were totally aligned with those of the business, with more than half having aims that were only partially in tandem or not at all.
 
Marc Bishop, plusHR’s director of HR consulting, said: “The research highlights the endemic problems within modern corporate HR functions which, despite their best endeavours over the last decade or so, aren’t actually aligned with business when creating corporate strategy.”
 
Around seven out of 10 respondents felt that one of the reasons for this misalignment of personal and organisational objectives was the lack of reference made to the issue by line managers. A further 86% cited an inability by those managers to help employees understand what success looked like.
 
But the situation also wasn’t helped by a failure to adequately reward performance that went above and beyond the call of duty (86%) and a lack of performance-based reward mechanisms in general (30%).

 

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Editor's Note - May 10

Had a busy week with two days at the Responsible Business Summit in London. What struck me was the appetite for sustainability in the corporate world. I spoke to senior figures from multinationals who knew wholeheartedly that businesses in the future would not succeed if the society around them failed.

Much of this appetite was understandably focused on collaboration - the future of sustainability. Words that were previously indicative of success - power, might, scale, size - are no longer enough in the open source, peer-reviewed future where opponents will not simply grumble and moan and then leave you in peace. Companies must work with governments, NGOs, charities and social enterprises as a matter of course. And even competitors, where necessary.

Facilitating this collaboration is the big challenge of the next five years. Highly-strung and ego-centric companies, feverish with the need to protect their brand, will struggle the most, but it's either adapt or die.

The business/charity relationship is one of the most interesting focal points. Business power can drive positive social change in so many ways but charities are the key holders to communities. As businesses are expected more and more to play a stake in the future, charity partnerships should be top of the corporate priority list. Businesses that don't work closely with a charity will find themselves with reputational problems.

There's a lot more to CSR, of course, but collaboration is the bedding on which CSR will rest. Businesses can no longer find the answers to all their problems in their own resources and assets.

And for many that's a scary thought.

Any thoughts, thoughts or questions, drop me a line on editor@hrzone.co.uk.

Best wishes

Jamie

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