Category: Human Resources

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What to do when I am still in  pre-Ulrich HR stage?

In my last post I have started to talk about companies whose HR organization is still in a pre-Ulrich stage. And again, although I was surprised to see so many of them, the reasons that I heard made total sense to me:

  • Some of these companies are size-wise at the border where the full Ulrich model makes sense
  • Some of these companies had major (non-HR) transformations in the recent years and HR did just not have a chance to get their own house in order
  • Some companies have failed HR outsourcing deals in their history that needed to be rolled back in
  • Some companies don’t think that this “Ulrich-model” is applicable for them
  • Some companies have heard stories of failed implementations at competitors
  • Some companies were not able to show the Business Case for a transformed HR to get the business sign off (and funding)

And for most of the reasons, companies are asking themselves what to do next? – shall they go to the Ulrich model? Shall they leapfrog and move to the next stage? Shall they just stay where they are? – Today I cannot and don’t want to provide final answers – there is no one-size-fits-all. However, there are themes that can be applied based on the specific company and HR situation.
Theme 1: Small company, predominantly present in one country, values based on tradition
If your company falls into this range, you probably think that the Ulrich model does not make any sense for you. And for the most part you are right. Specializing your small HR department into the three pillars will most likely cause more issues than it will bring you to a point where you can gain the advantages of the Ulrich-Model. However, there are certain elements you should consider: HR Business Partnering and professionalized HR Admin outsourcing.
Business Partnering and the area of strategic HR is an area which potentially brings value to any size of HR organizations. This does not necessarily mean that you should install dedicated HR Business Partners, but that you either have the Head of HR or another senior HR practitioner have in addition to his/ her daily role play the role of an HR Business Partner. This is not an easy one as the skills and capabilities you need for a successful HRBP are very different from traditional HR skills. But even for small firms, it is important to start thinking strategically about HR. Why? – the war for talent is everywhere, talent today is more agile and mobile than ever before, etc. Small companies play in the same arena like mid-sized or big firms and need to be able to compete on the job market. In order to do so successfully, you need to start thinking strategically about your Human Capital – what kind of needs do we have, what does the business want, where will we be in 5 years…
Outsourcing is probably anyway something that many small firms do today – they just don’t call it outsourcing. But if you let your payroll run by any tax consultancy or small service provider, you are outsourcing already. The interesting thing about outsourcing for small firms is that there is a market now for selective outsourcing – on more than just payroll. And in many cases, this offer is better than the in-house process. And sometimes even cheaper. So really think about your HR services and which could be sourced out. The typical services to outsource here are payroll, learning services, HR legal services, recruiting services, master data services.
This is what I suggest to consider and assess. Again, this does not mean to go away from your traditional HR Generalist model. In fact, I suggest to keep it – just spice it up with some targeted Ulrich elements.
 
Theme 2: Mid-sized multinational company with agile and change proven workforce
Many of these companies are still in a more traditional HR Generalist model. This is often due to either the “wait and see” mentality or the understanding that Ulrich is just for big companies. Well, the maturity of the HR models today do no longer limit the Ulrich model to large companies – in fact if you are sized around 10.000 employees , you should seriously consider the Ulrich model. – and let’s face it: probably your core business units/ functions are extremely agile. If it would be any different, you would probably not exist anymore. Mid-sized companies are the most agile – both through necessities, but also due to their specific set ups. HR should embrace and support this agility. This means going into the Ulrich model. And doing it fast. Due to the nature of your workforce and business, you are change ready. Of course, change from and in HR is nothing the firm is used to (or HR for that matter) – but it is used to change in the core business. This is where you as HR practitioner should take advantage of.
In essence, don’t take a long change process, do it fast, straight to the latest evolution of the Ulrich model and don’t lose money or time on the way. There is no reason to.

Theme 3: Large, complex, global company
Now, this category is a tricky one. From my perspective and in my experience, large complex global companies are not the most agile – especially not when it comes to HR. However, it is no question to me “if” such firms should transform their HR departments. They should do that for sure. And they should start today. However, they need to do this step carefully and not too fast. And especially for firms like this, a leapfrog approach is not something I would recommend for various reasons. First of all there is not yet a proven HR model out their which is “next generation” – almost everything you see and read is still based and rooted in Ulrich or just pure theory – and firms like this need a reliable HR, not a testing lab.
But also, you need to take everyone with you. Changing to the Ulrich model is a huge step – as things will change for HR, for the business leadership as well as for each and every employee. This change needs to be made – not just “decided and implemented the next day”. Such a change needs time for all parties. And just jumping from the last century to the next one without a stop in “today” will overstretch everyone.
Still, the change towards the Ulrich model is really something which is out of the question. There is not a single reason why not to do it!

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Facing reality

In my recent posts, I started to elaborate and outline NEW HR – a new understanding, definition and approach to HR. It is meant as the after-Ulrich idea on what comes next for HR. While I still believe that this is needed and true for many companies out there, during the recent weeks I had the chance to talk to different clients – varying in size, home-country, industry, etc. But they all had one thing in common: Their HR organizations were in a pre-Ulrich stage. – and I believe that there are many more companies out there in a pre-Ulrich HR stage. 
At first I have to admit, I was surprised, but after speaking to them, the picture got clearer:

  • Some of these companies are size-wise at the border where the full Ulrich model makes sense 
  • Some of these companies had major (non-HR) transformations in the recent years and HR did just not have a chance to get their own house in order 
  • Some companies have failed HR outsourcing deals in their history that needed to be rolled back in 
  • Some companies don’t think that this “Ulrich-model” is applicable for them 
  • Some companies have heard stories of failed implementations at competitors 
  • Some companies were not able to show the Business Case for a transformed HR to get the business sign off (and funding) 

And I am sure that there are many more reasons why companies did not yet transform their HR Organization. But what should these companies now do? – should they stay as they are? – should they leapfrog? – should they just start the transformation road with step 1?
The answer is again not one-size-fits-all. As there are different reasons why firms did not transform yet, there are different approaches that fit best. Each case should be looked at individually to find the best suitable solution. For example the “failed Business Case” issue is one that can easily be tackled. The Business Case for an HR Transformation in most cases is valid – of course, payback is not as fast as for example in Finance Transformations, but it is a positive ROI. And it is not only about the direct costs and savings, but also about business enablement. The indirect value of an HR Transformation is the real Business Case! – reduced time-to-hire, impactful training, etc.
But what to do once you have proven the value? – which route should you take? Answering this question, many consulting firms leave clients alone – their thought leadership is focused around HR of the future, the newest, latest and greatest, often not considering the whole industry, but just the spearhead.
Of course, there are companies out there with state-of-the art HR Organizations and Services and these want to and need know the way forward – and also, from the marketing perspective, it seems more relevant to sketch the colorful, imaginative future rather than the grey reality of today. So no one to blame.
However, for the companies out there in the pre-Ulrich state the question “what to do” is open – and I will try to answer this in a general fashion in my next posts. Again, there is no one-size-fits-all – but there are clear tendencies that can be identified and provide you with the general direction depending on your situation.

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NEW HR – what is our means of existence

Welcome back to Chief HR Office – in my last post I have started to talk about a concept named “New HR” and I have promised to further elaborate on that. And today I would like to do so. As laid out in my last post, HR is a total mixed bag of activities and before we can talk about New HR, we need to align and get clear on what HR is about today. In other words, what are the areas HR is busy with today?

So, let’s start with the basic things:

  • HR is responsible for all employee related data and it’s administration
  • HR is often responsible for time & attendance data
  • HR is responsible for paying employees
  • HR is responsible for setting up and managing the rules and policies about how employees will be treated and what employees are allowed and not allowed to do
  • HR is responsible for all contractual data and documents with/ for employees
  • HR is often the first point of contact for employee for any policy or unspecific work related question

So, this was the basic stuff, now let’s get to the next level:

  • HR is responsible for training employees
  • HR is responsible for paying employees right
  • HR is responsible for retaining employees and attracting the right new ones
  • HR is responsible for engaging employees and keep them engaged
  • HR is also responsible to manage employees out of the organization

And from the other perspective:

  • HR is responsible for understanding and meeting business’ workforce needs
  • HR is responsible for building effective teams and, the bigger picture, an effective company (organization structure)
  • HR is responsible to support or even manage any kind of company reorganization

Not to forget, HR is also responsible to manage two important stakeholders that ONLY HR is managing: works councils and unions. 

The lists by no means want to be exhaustive, but they illustrate an important finding. What we can see and learn from this list (again) is that HR is a total mixed bag and that various responsibilities lay with HR.  How is one department or even one Leadership team supposed to manage all of this? And this from different perspectives: type of work, necessary skill-set, stakeholder involved, etc.

I believe that this is a question which should be re-raised and where Ulrich is no longer the final solution, but we need to raise it to the next level. More about that in one of my next posts.

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New HR: What is HR about

During my recent blog posts, I have talked about the different clients HR has and what these clients expect from HR. HR is exposed to a variety of clients and these clients tend to be also very different in their thinking, their ambitions, their needs and wants, etc. That doesn’t make it easy for HR to collaborate with all of these stakeholders and also fulfill all different expectations. But before discussing these different stakeholder expectations in more detail, let’s focus on “What is HR about”.
HR or Human Resources as it is called is a pretty new concept, but the origins of that function are to be found in the Personnel Department and before that in actually Administration. This tells us many things:

  1. a) HR’s history is very diverse
  2. b) HR is an evolution and I suggest that this evolution is not over yet
  3. c) very different meanings and abouts are part of HR today

Fact is, that the origins of HR are nothing more than administration and paying employees. It actually started in Finance for many bits and was really focused on that. From there it evolved into the Personnel Department and had to deal with more than just Payroll and basic administration. And then came HR and today Strategic HR – wow, what an evolution. What a fantastic function… well, or not?
Let’s have a closer look at this: With each evolution only new, additional work and responsibility came to HR – nothing was ever taken away, so HR has become a “Gemischtwarenladen” as we say in Germany or in English a mixed bag. I would not question that any of the tasks and responsibilities of HR are unimportant – in fact the opposite. All of them are important, but also all of them are very different. There is pure administration of employee data, there is specialized payroll, there is benefits, there is performance management, there is organization effectiveness, there is… a multitude of very different responsibilities. Who ever has seen the process trees of for example HR and any other function recognizes immediately this multitude and also sees that HR is in fact very different to that part than other functions that go into Shared Services. Finance or other functions are more homogeneous whereas HR is very heterogeneous.
Now, how can this work? We have very different stakeholders, very different responsibilities and they all scream for specialized skills. I am saying – that cannot work. Specialization and focus is what should happen here. This idea is not new. Dave Ulrich has in the mid-90ies already started to work on this and was very successful in terms of HR functions being split into three distinct, focused areas. But – they are still in the most part HR and also the specialization did not always work out. The idea was new to HR back then and has definitely started something – but today, 20 years after, I feel that the next evolution – if this time not revolution – is necessary: New HR.
Stay tuned for more around New HR on this blog.

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New HR: The role of the works council 3/3

Today I would like to close my plea for the works council. I do hope that my last two posts did start you thinking about the works council and how a new approach might change the interaction into collaboration – and maybe even some works council members have read my posts, too.
I would like to close with the two statements of:

  • Align with the necessities of the speedy economy
  • Act as co-owner

 
Align with the necessities of the speedy economy
Probably some of us do not like the above statement – speedy economy. Sometimes I don’t like it myself. But it is a fact. The speed of business transactions, turnaround times, trends, etc. has increased in the recent years – and it will increase further. I don’t want to discuss at this point if this is good or bad or nothing – it is a fact and each company has to play in this new, faster-paced environment. This means being fast itself or fail. Of course, fast decisions are not always the better ones and it is sometimes even better to think about it a few days more, but this is not always possible. The 2nd place is the first loser.
Some important decisions have to be co-decided with the works council and the works council should match the necessary speed. Not blindly and not in all instances, but if a decision needs to be reached fast, the works council needs to be able to find a decision – fast. In order to do this, the structures and meeting schedules of works councils need to adjust and be more flexible.
However, as I said, not in any instance, a fast decision is necessary, so my plea is still for the works council to question every decision and ensure that it is the right one. For this, not less speed is necessary, but closeness to the business and the markets. This brings me to my next point.
 
Act as Co-owner
The topic of co-ownership of employees is an old one and was utilized for many discussion already. I would like to utilize it non-ideologic, but reality based. The responsibility of the works council should never be underestimated. Each decision a works council makes or postpones or does not make influences the abilities of a company to be competitive and successful. This weight, this responsibility should be carried and understood by each works council member. In fact, for example the german BetrVG §80 says the the works council should support any measures that ensure or extend employment in a company. Now, this responsibility is a bigger one than „just“ supporting and representing employee needs or wishes. It is the responsibility to see the bigger picture, to understand the broader business situation, markets, company status and also decide against single employees or employee groups in the interest of the bigger company success and future. This is not something that a works council should only ask from the management, but this is a works council responsibility as well. I am calling this co-ownership. The works council is the co-owner the yang to the yin.
And with this, I am closing my plea for a modern works council, a competitive advantage in today’s economy.

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New HR: The role of the works council 2/3

Well, after a longer break over Christmas and New Years, I would like to take up again the topic of a modern works council. In my last post I have already laid out the reason why I think this is important as well as positioned where I see the necessity of and for a modern works council:

  • Focus on the future of employees, not the past
  • Being inclusive in a multi-generational workforce
  • Promote the advantages of the digital age
  • Align with the necessities of the speedy economy
  • Act as co-owner

I have talked about focussing on the future of employees, not the present. Today I would like to provide my view on the other statements.
Being inclusive in a multi-generational workforce
This is a big one. For years consultancies and also research is talking about the multi-generational workforce. It is a fact that very different generations with sometimes even opposing views, values, or expectations have to cooperate in today’s companies. HR as a function is trying to deal with it already – but they have just started. Leaders are struggling hard with that and employees of the different generations are getting frustrated.
What is missing in my last paragraph? – right, the works council! The above mentioned parties are at least realizing the fact of the multi-generational workforce and are trying to do something to solve the arising issues. I have not seen many works councils that are doing the same – or that have actually realized this fact. And just one current trend that works councils try to enforce in Germany illustrates this: Shutdown of email servers on the weekend and after regular working hours. The idea behind this is noble: supporting the employees to have a real work-life-balance. But the question that needs to be asked is: Who wants to have such a regulated work-life-balance? Or better, does everyone want such a regulated work-life-balance? – And the answer is no! Especially the latest generations have a different concept of work-life-balance. A self regulated concept. They want to decide on their own when and where they work as well as how they get the work done (within deadlines). But also parents for example need to have a self regulated work-life-balance in order to enable them to have a normal job. Working hours for these groups might look very different from the 9-5 hours that are used as basis for the email-server-shutdown ideas.
This is just one point where the different generations have even opposing views and the works council only sees one view/ opinion. The general field of multi-generation integration is way open for works councils to act on and to help the multi-generational workforce to play together. But this is not easy as the second step (after realizing that this conflict exists) to play on this field is to understand it. And in order to do so, the works council itself should (and need to be) multi-generational. And by multi-generational I mean official, full members of different generations – not the youth/ apprentice representation blanket. This is where it needs to start. This is what it means to be „inclusive“.
 
Promote the advantages of the digital age
The next aspect is not too far off from the one I have discussed above. The digital age offers a million different options to do things different (and yes, even sometimes better) than before. This means risks, but also advantages. The works council should actively promote and utilize these new options for its own work as well as for all its employees it is representing. I don’t mean blind adoption, but serious discussion and utilization. This is especially necessary as legal regulations are not yet adapted, still focus on the IT abilities of the last century. Works councils could just hide behind these regulations or they could step up and utilize (with full respect to data privacy) the new possibilities to form current regulation.
A concrete topic are workforce analytics. With the help of today’s Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions as well as the power of analytics the insights into a companies workforce are multiple – and these insights could be used to promote the importance of specific qualifications, trainings, flexibility arrangements, etc. – but of course they could also be used against single employees. And this is what I have seen as a major works council’s argument against analytics. But analytics by itself are not bad. What is done with them is key. So I plea for a utilization of the advantages of the digital age, but have an eye on how they are used.
That’s it for today and in my next post I will conclude my plea with the remaining two statements.

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New HR: The role of the works council 1/3

Works council. This word is one of the less favorites of HR colleagues. Still or actually because of that I am writing this post about the works council.
In my last post I have talked about why HR should cooperate with the works council and how this could look like. Today I would like to write a plea for a modern works council.
Works councils in many european countries have a very special and important Job: They are the direct representation of all employees and have codetermination rights for many management decisions if employee interests are involved. That makes the works council very powerful. However, very often I have not seen a works council that used this power in a way that really promotes employees as well as the business success as a whole. – and these are the major two factors for all works council work.
Of course, most (if not all) HR colleagues will agree with me on this assessment and most (if not all) works council members will disagree with my assessment. Well, let’s be open and honest here: I have not performed an empirical study here, this is based on my personal experience. But more important – it doesn’t matter. I do not want to discuss the past or nurture this conflict in any way. I would like to make a plea for a modern, forward thinking, integrative works council.
Based on the two main objectives of the works council (represent all employees and work towards the best for the company), I envision a works council that exactly focusses on that. How does that look like?

  • Focus on the future of employees, not the past
  • Being inclusive in a multi-generational workforce
  • Promote the advantages of the digital age
  • Align with the necessities of the speedy economy
  • Act as co-owner

For me, these are the major opportunities for works councils to show their readiness for a modern, new way of executing their important objectives! – Many HR colleagues are probable thinking why I am actually focussing on finding reasons for the works council and am not pleading against it. Well, even today I strongly believe that every employee as well as every company is better off with a modern works council than without any! Why? – because you always need two sides to be successful. Yin and Yang is a very old concept – often cited, and often showed to be successful. The same applies to management and works council. Both are at the first view opposites and contrary, but in fact interconnected and complimentary. It is supposed to be two different views towards the same goal: business performance.
Focus on the future of employees, not the past
This is the first principle to support the two objectives. Works council should represent the needs and views from employees, should be their voice towards the management. This is 100% correct and should still be the case tomorrow. But, the understanding of the “needs of the employees” is what should be examined in more detail.
In the past, this often meant defending the status quo. But this is the easiest way of representing your employees – just repeat what they say and want: No one wants change, no one really believes in the chances of change.
In my view, a works council needs to be more and can be more. The mandate is to represent employees – not to keep the status quo. And what is the number one goal of each and every employee? Keep employment with good pay and human working conditions.
In the world we are living today (and you can either like it or not – but that does not change the fact), the only chance to achieve this is constant change, renewal and innovation. This more often than not comes with big changes for many employees.
A works council’s task is to not only understand this, but to actively support this journey with ideas as well as promotion of this towards all employees. This is a tough job – much tougher than just supporting employees in their change resistance. But the good thing is than tmore often than not, this secures employment.
In my next post I will lay out me plea for the remaining four topics and the importantce of the works council. I assume that already this one in conjunction with my general plea for the works council will provoke some discussions.

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New HR: Understanding HR's customers – works council

This is the final part of the HR’s customers analysis. Last but not least the works council/ unions in general.
Ulrich himself has in his basic model not really touched this customer. His model does not actively cater for works council/ unions. This is understandable as he is US based and most of his research which he used as basis for his model is in non unionized environments. However, in many countries (ok, mostly in Europe) HR work is impossible without active involvement of the works council. In many countries HR measures can actually not get implemented without consultation or even acceptance of the works council or union. This power makes works councils/ unions a big player and big customer for HR.
This does, however, not mean that HR in these countries is treating the works council as a customer. In many companies that I have seen, the works council is seen as political opponent or worse, as enemy. Ok, this is not only because of the HR department, but often due to the general company politics and the works council/ union which thinks that its only reason for existence is to oppose anything that they can – and calling it “defending employee interests…”.
The topic of works councils/ unions is a very interesting one – from both sides. The history of unions and works councils is long and has a big tradition – however, I recommend they change their view of the world and their reason for existence or they will go down (as you can already see in Germany where unionization is decreasing) or bring down the company they work against (not for). But this is a topic I will touch in a separate blog.
Today I would like to emphasize on the importance of works council inclusion in day-to-day HR work. As I have laid out above, works councils/ unions are very powerful in some countries/ industries and the HR department actually has to work “with them”. However, even if this is not the case HR should consider involving them in the HR work for various reasons: May it because of the closeness of works councils/ unions to the employees and therefore a) help in better understanding the actual needs of employees but also b) help in promoting HR measures through an additional channel. Or may it to utilize them as additional input and support in designing and implementing new initiatives to ease the official review and sign off of such initiatives.
It might not often seem that way, but I believe that works councils/ unions actually do have important and valuable input for HR, its processes and initiatives. HR just needs to tap into this territory and utilize it – and this not only “as required”, but proactive and inclusive.
Assessment of HR’s current state, gap assessments, HR strategy formulation should always include a 360 degree feedback and input – so far I have only seen HR, the business and the top management being involved. Why not the works council/ union?
Of course I know that this seems almost crazy given the current state of cooperation between HR and the union/ works council, but someone needs to take the first step – and there is nothing to loose.
After this first step from HR, the works council/ union of course has to take the second step, which is also a big change from today for most of the companies that I have seen. This requires a very different view and understanding of “reason for existence”. I will talk about this more in my next post.
But just think about the potential – a new source of input, a new cooperation partner, less fighting and tactical manoeuvring.

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New HR: Understanding HR's customers – Employees (part 1)

Well, it has been some time since my last post. Sorry about that. But I also used the time to further reflect on the fourth customer: the employee.

When Dave Ulrich was designing his model, the employees, their values and expectations were very different from today. Many things have changed:

  • The new Generations are very different than the one’s back when Ulrich wrote his piece
  • The expectations from employees but also from employers to their employees have changed
  • The talent landscape has changed dramatically – from a “buyer” to a “seller” market

I believe that employees are one of the customers that HR professionals are not surprised to see here. But before going into the details, let me pause and raise a different question: Is the employee really a customer of HR? – it seems odd to ask this question, but with my recent post about real Talent Management I have already touched this topic. I honestly believe that the people manager is the first point to go to for each and every employee. That is why it is called people manager. This is what leadership is about – but (and this is an important but) HR has to a) enable these managers and b) there are still a few other tasks that stay with HR and the Talent Function.

From my perspective employees have three general needs when working for and in a company:
a) They want to get paid
b) They want to have a great job and enjoy work
c) They want to get developed and succeed

So, for a) clearly the HR Admin function is responsible. This is a commodity and should be handled through self-services and a pure admin function.
b) is more complex. There is clearly a combination of people manager and HR necessary. The people manager is responsible for the day-to-day job and experience, but HR should have a look at the overall working environment with policies (yes, although this topic is “out” it still is necessary – in some countries and industries more than in others…), workplace design, organization design, etc.
c) is again a mixture of people manager and HR. The day-to-day development again should come through the people manager. But the strategic, cross-functional development needs to be not only enabled, but executed through HR. HR are the only ones that really understand the complete Talent landscape of the firm and can “follow” Talent inside and outside the company, but also blueprint potential career paths through the firm as development, experience and succession paths. The people manager of course should have this in mind as well, but is generally not in a position to grow Talent cross-functional or even across a current functional deployment.

Back in the days when Ulrich started his model, most of above mentioned (except the payment topic) were “nice-to-haves”. Today they are MUST HAVES – and if you cannot deliver on those, Talent will make its decision to leave. And this is what you don’t want in a market of scarce talent… – or at least you want to make sure that Talent comes back as well. And to enable this in a proper way, today’s HR function is not prepared. I haven’t seen many HR functions that really play well in the talent space. There are some that have a great start, but an integrated concept strategy and structure is so far missing and NEW HR has to step into this.

But, this is only part one of employees – there is a part two which is often not reflected in HR: future and past employees. I will further elaborate on this topic in my next post.

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New HR: Understanding HR's customers – External customers

In my recent posts I have already covered Management as well as Shareholder as HR’s clients. Today I would like to talk about external customers of the company as HR’s clients. Again, one is probably asking “Why are external customers client’s of HR?” – well, probably all of us agree that those customers do not receive any direct HR services. They are not paid (payroll), they are not part of any works council negotiations nor are they part of any succession planning. But still, HR should pay close attention to customers. So, why is that?!

Well, a company can only be successful when its customer’s needs are met. These needs are met through a combination of a companies non-people (machines, for example) and people resources (skills, ideas, services, etc.). Depending on the product/ service a company is offering, people resources have a higher or lower influence on quality. For example in pure service companies, people resources are the only impact on quality of service. Having said that, who has the most possibilities to shape, motivate, train the people resources? – HR has! Of course that does not mean that HR is the one being responsible for the employees. This still stays with the leadership/ management. But all non administrative HR processes are designed to influence the performance of employees in certain ways. – best in ways that enable employees to better serve customer needs.

And in order to enable HR to do that, HR needs to understand what customers are looking for when they receive a service or a product from the company. Only if HR understands this, HR is able to shape HR tools and processes in a way that influence employees to better serve the customer. And this is where external customers are (indirect) clients of HR.

In my consulting career I have not seen many HR professionals that understand what customers expect from their employer/ company. Today’s HR is (although these thoughts are not new, but hovering through Human Resources since 1995 at least) still only inward focused. In the best case HR understand the products of a company, understand how the business runs. But I haven’t seen any HR department that has asked marketing or sales for a presentation to better understand the companies’ customers. This is something HR really needs to work on. And it is that easy – start in your own company, approach marketing or sales. These colleagues know what customers expect from your company/ employer. Additionally, just do some research on your own – go out to the point of sale and understand why customers are buying your companies’ product or service and not the competition. Take this knowledge and apply it to each and every Talent Management tool. Use it in business discussions and when shaping the strategic agenda. Start today!