It’s the interaction between HR and business leaders that matters
Thank you Nicolas Behbahani for sharing this work by Mercer. It’s valuable. However, I always bristle when I read ‘HR needs to …’ because HR are generally way ahead in their thinking, but resisted and/or under-resourced.
What if we substituted ‘business leaders need to …’ in Nicolas’ summary:
‘HR needs to shift from the organization-centric target operations model (TOM) to a more fluid, human-centric model that begins with the target interaction model (TIM).’
HR are indeed accountable for leading HR strategy whether it’s a TIM or a TOM. The ‘interaction’ model that’s ‘fluid and human-centric’ is natural to HR, and less natural to business leaders. Yet it’s line leaders and managers who ‘live’ it. It’s about day-to-day interactions with them, not with HR. HR take the horse to water, but it won’t always drink.
Giving HR another theoretic model does not solve the core issue.
It’s the interaction between HR and business leaders that matters.
To quote my own book, ‘HR cannot succeed alone. It can deliver only when its work is embraced, embedded and lived by leaders and managers across the organisation’.
Or in Dave Ulrich‘s words, what we need is ‘the evolution of HR to interact in ways that create value for all stakeholders through human capability.’
HR people want to interact in this way. However, I talk with HR people at all levels every day who are under-valued and left out of strategic decision-making. They’re under-resourced and lack easily accessible HR tech solutions, and that makes it tough to get their heads above water.
Building productive interaction between HR and the business is our focus at Enable-HR International. To drive this interaction at the strategic level, we’ve developed a Strategic Roadmap. Download our free ‘self-drive’ guide here.
You have to start with where the business is, and this helps you to do that in a structured and collaborative way. Then you can make a strong business case for more resources as well as active support.
