Evolving HR: From service to process to insight

The evolution of HR over the past twenty years has been one from service function, to mastery of process, and now to one whose key value is the delivery of insight.

We’ll look at what ‘insight’ means next time, but for now let’s reflect on that evolution. It’s a development that, in the view of Lee Sears, author of the original Next Generation HR report, gathered pace after the 2008 Crash. Many of the organisations who suffered badly then may well have been excellent at ‘process’ – be that managing talent, or creating reward strategies – but how involved were they with the organisation’s strategy? Was HR seen as having a ‘corporate steward’ role – did it act as a conscience, more mindful than most of the organisation’s longer-term needs?

As one respondent states in the Next Generation HR Asia report, HR needs to have “a common focus on integrity, and personal integrity particularly.” This isn’t just about living the values HR needs to see in the organisation, it’s also about a vision driven by HR of a more sustainable organisation.

So when Boudreau and Ramstad, in Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital, comment that “the mission of the HR function is to increase the success of the organization by improving decisions that depend on or impact people”, we would add: “…and the future of the business.” HR should no longer be a short-term game – as that game ends all too soon. Instead, the function is there to steward the organisation into the medium and long term, which demands deep understanding of market and context, and the delivery of insight. Or, to quote Stephen Dando, one of Next Generation HR’s strongest supporters, in a recent interview:    

“The main challenge for HRDs is to create capacity amid the considerable day-to-day demands so that they are able to focus their functions on the biggest drivers of long-term value for their organisations.”

Once we were a police service; and sometimes we were a welfare service. Then, in Lee Sears’ words, we became “the illegitimate child of Adam Smith and Dave Ulrich”, partnering the business.

Now, we should be leveraging HR’s unique position at the heart of organisation, context and business to drive insight rich with value, to sustain organisations into increasingly uncertain futures. For many, that will be an aspiration; but then fifteen years ago, many organisations aspired to be closer to the business.

We’ve come a long way in how we’ve evolved HR. But the next step is arguably the most significant and rewarding of all. 
      

Next time: Insight itself