Human Relations is having something of a renaissance in terms of its overall effect in helping a company achieve its long-term goals. Savvy HR leaders are helping firms take a more active role in instilling in employees a direct link between their personal success and the success of their company. Cultivating the kind of talent that evolves to meet the new challenges that emerge in an ever-changing business climate is essential. Robyn Clark, Global Management and HR consulting firm BPI Group's Managing Director of talent solutions, says now more than ever C-Suite executives are in need of a trusted advisor, and more and more are turning to HR leaders to fill those shoes.
Consulting: What are some of the biggest HR challenges firms are facing?
Clark: One of the biggest things I know organizations are worried about is how do we have a workforce and talent for the future. Part of that evolves around how is the organization going to evolve in order to be relevant in the marketplace. The other part of that is how do we make sure our talent is developing in order to support that. That has myriad issues attached to it, so people have to have the right skills, the right mindset, and have to be able to apply it. If that's not on HR leaders' minds, it really should be.
Generally speaking, the way business works today it's not on a lot of the leaders' minds. They're more worried about short term results than they are about building an organization for the future. I think they need to be able to work together as an executive team to be able to manage the focus on both short and long term.
Consulting: How do they cultivate that kind of talent?
Clark: One thing they have to do is help people develop a personal sense of responsibility to develop themselves to be relevant and useful in the future. They have to educate people about how to think about their careers and how to think about their careers relative to the organization they work in. That kind of wakes a sleeping giant. That means people are going to be coming in and asking about opportunities, they'll think about the strategy of the company and how they can serve that, and they'll have a sense of urgency about wanting to see things improve. That means those HR leaders will have to be equipped to offer feedback, coach, and help people figure out how to apply themselves inside an organization in a way that creates success for both the organization and the person. When they can't do that, it de-motivates and disengages people. They need to take responsibility for creating success for themselves and the organization. A shared success kind of thing. It's about balancing the needs of both. Successful people can do that.
Consulting: What are clients demanding?
Clark: What's interesting is I'm not sure clients are always demanding what they should be demanding. Right now I think there's a focus on leadership development. Organizations know they need to have the right structure and leadership skills in order to create a successful organization. They get that, but I think they're thinking about that more in the short term than the long term. I don't know that they're really thinking about how do we develop leadership skills that will help lead people to that future and then be able to create it. We're just coming out of a tough time, many leaders are still focused on short-term results, and there's a strong balance you have to manage between short- and long-term.
Consulting: What are some ways HR leaders can be more effective within organizations?
Clark: They really need to understand the organization's business strategy. They need to be provocative and push the agenda, not wait for the organization to say they need something, but rather get out there in front to really just take a leadership role, not wait for someone to give it to them, but to provocatively push the agenda. To help leaders think about people in a different way and think about how people can be leveraged in order to help the organization achieve greater success. They also need to really be conscious of building relationships and networks with their peers and with the leader of the organization. The CEO of an organization wants a trusted advisor, they want someone to talk to, they need to talk about people issues, they're probably the biggest issues most CEOs have. They know in order to achieve what they want to achieve that people are doing things differently than they are doing now. To make that happen, leaders have to do something different too. I think they want a trusted advisor in their HR leader to help figure all of that out. In order to get that trusted advisor relationship, the language is business: having the right business acumen, knowing the strategy of the organization, it's feeling the passion and the vision the way the CEO might feel it, and then it's building a really strong relationship with the other business leaders in the organization to gain an understanding of who they are and what they need.
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