Monday Nov 25, 2024
Monday Nov 25, 2024
Friday, 23 May 2014 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Also known as the HR guru, Ulrich spoke to a fully-packed audience at an event hosted by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) on the topic ‘The Future of HR’.
Stating that he wanted to be more of a teacher than a presenter, the Professor aimed at making the audience understand the ‘outside in’ view that will give the HR function a whole new perspective about their respective organisation’s future and ways in which they can align the workforces and stakeholders outside their institutions.
Facilitating the half-day session with the goal of giving ‘ideas with impact,’ Prof. Ulrich focused on how HR can look at the future, add value and make a difference.
“While ideas will help you, impact will help you to do your work better. When you have a conversation with a person, look at how it can be made different. Question if you have the necessary tools with which you can contribute to your company. Regardless of the industry you are in, always try to change the way in which people are managed,” he advised the audience.
How did HRM begin?
The human resource field began about 60 years ago as an administration function. The challenge then was solving issues that were related to the conditions in which work took place. It was about finding answers to questions such as, how people can be helped to do their work faster, how training can be done, and how recruitment should be carried out. This field later shifted to accommodate functional expertise. It was then about finding answers to questions such as how to plan careers, manage talents, and tackle areas such as hiring, compensation, and most importantly communication.
Modelling strategy:
New role for HR
However, despite having passed 60 years, the administration work still remains with HR, and this is one area the function cannot escape. Along with this role, and carrying out functional responsibilities, HR now has to model business strategies, said Ulrich. This is how HR can help business leaders reach their goals. HR professionals should think as to how they can use their function to drive business. It is for this reason that over the last 15-20 years the field has been called Strategic Human Resources, he noted.
"While ideas will help you, impact will help you to do your work better. When you have a conversation with a person, look at how it can be made different. Question if you have the necessary tools with which you can contribute to your company. Regardless of the industry you are in, always try to change the way in which people are managed
It is about getting the customer involved. It would be ideal if the messages that we share with customers are those that we share with employees Our job in HR is not just to get things done from the inside but from the outside. This will allow bringing in the external perspective into the company and this is imperative
– Professor Dave Ulrich"
“The metaphor I have for this is to look at strategy as a mirror and in the mirror of strategy you can reflect the priorities you need to have. Through every HR practice the strategy should be accomplished. So we HR professionals as business partners can help make the strategy and that in turn could help in innovation,” said Ulrich.
However, the goal of HR is not to implement strategy. He noted that if implementation is taken over, then strategy is no longer a mirror but becomes a window, a window which will allow looking at the world outside the company.
Doing so will allow the function understand how external factors that affect the business can be tackled.
Today and tomorrow’s challenges for HR
While the current day challenge for HR is about getting line managers to get ownership of the function, building a coherent team, getting the right people into the organisation, and expecting the HR team to function like an engineering function, Ulrich pointed out that for tomorrow, the challenge would be to involve the customer in all those areas.
Therefore if hiring the right people is a challenge today, then tomorrow will be about hiring the right people who fall within the criteria of the customer. It is no more about just becoming the employer of choice.
Presenting an example in this regard, Ulrich shared that an airline in the South West gets its customers to interview their flight attendants. The justification is that since it is the customer who knows what he wants best, the ideal way to get about this is to involve the customer in the process of hiring.
Similarly for training, it is important to train employees in a way in which would ultimately satisfy the customer. For this American-based multinational General Electric (GE) has taken a new approach to carry out their training where about 20% of the participants are from outside the company. The 20% outsiders are the suppliers, customers, community leaders, and investors.
With this, GE shifted from a 360 degree feedback model to a 720 one which allowed them to better understand the outcome of the training program.
“It is about getting the customer involved. It would be ideal if the messages that we share with customer are those that we share with employees,” said Ulrich.
What makes HR successful?
Ulrich opined that what makes HR successful is not what it does inside the organisation, but what it does on the outside. Therefore, HR should continuously question if it is seeing the function through the eyes of its customers and ensure that the customers do gain value from their work.
“Our job in HR is not just to get things done from the inside but from the outside. This will allow bringing in the external perspective into the company and this is imperative,” expressed Ulrich.
The ideal way to go about this is understand how the business in the external world operates. In addition to being thorough with the general business conditions, they need to also understand the ongoing social trends. This he noted as imperative since if HR is going to connect with the customer, they need to be well aware.
“They need to think that if they are able to understand the outside world, then they will be able to connect better,” he added.
Who are the customers of HR?
While the majority would say customers of HR are the employees of an organisation, they are only partly correct. The job of the HR is to recognise multiple stakeholders and have the capacity to work outside as well as inside. The customers include not only those the business serves, but investors as well.
This is simply because not only is an investor worried about financial returns, but also worried about the ability of the business to sustain. Therefore it becomes even more important for HR to think along these lines and be part of the conversation.
Adding value to the discussion
In a business discussion all functions are expected to contribute. Thus, the HR function should make an attempt to find out from finance the cost, the discipline, and the economic rationale. From marketing and sales, it should find out who the customers are and what the expectation from the business is, and new marketing trends.“When HR sits with other departments, they bring to the table discussions about people and their talents. But that alone is not enough. Talent is not the only thing that we bring to a company. I think we also help the company to identify the culture and the right team since getting in good people alone is probably not enough for the company to succeed,” he expressed.
Pix by Lasantha Kumara
Running an organisation is not for the fainthearted, Ulrich tells CEOsBy Dushinka Subramaniam The CEO Forum with HR guru Dave Ulrich organised by CIMA and hSenid was packed with enthusiasm. The event revolved around ‘Building Competitive Organisations’ and I had the pleasure of listening to Dave Ulrich. It was a fascinating insight into what drives competitive advantage, how we build talent, how we create culture and what our leaders know and how can they be effective. "David Olson Ulrich (born 1953) is a university professor, author, speaker, management coach, and management consultant. Ulrich is a professor of business at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and co-founder of The RBL Group. He has written numerous books covering topics in human resources and leadership. Ulrich is currently on the Board of Directors for Herman Miller, a Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources, and is on the Board of Trustees of Southern Virginia University. Dave Ulrich has been ranked the #1 Management Educator & Guru by BusinessWeek, selected by Fast Company as one of the 10 most innovative and creative leaders and named the most influential person in HR by HR Magazine for three years" Dave sympathised with CEOs as he explained that running an organisation is not for the fainthearted and a CEO had the added burden of making sure that “are we building organisations that our children and grandchildren will be proud to work in?” Furthermore, he found that one of the key elements to an organisation’s competitiveness was HR value creation: Capability. This was measured against individual ability and the organisation’s capability which took in to account ‘talent of the workforce,’ ‘leadership’ and ‘culture within the workplace’. Six strategies
To further enhance an organisation’s competitiveness through ‘talent of the workforce,’ he looked at six strategies:
1.Buy – Acquire new talent by recruiting individuals from outside or from other departments or divisions within the organisation.
2.Build – Develop talent through training, education, formal job training, job rotation, special assignments and action learning.
3.Boost – Move the right people through the organisation and into higher positions.
4.Borrow – Partner with consultants, vendors, customers and suppliers outside the organisation in arrangements that transfer skill and knowledge
5.Bounce – Remove low-performing or underperforming individuals
6.Bind – Retain employees with high growth potential and valued talent.
VOIICCE
And to balance this and make sure that there is commitment from the workforce he looked at VOIICCE.
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