HR excluded from decision making

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Permalink Reply by MARIUS MEYER on March 2, 2010 at 10:05am

Hi, I think the challenge is to position HR at a strategic level at the company by highlighting the strategic role HR plays to the success of the company. Also, getting involved in high level decision-making stuff, e.g. the role of the board, risk management and other aspects of governance. For instance, emphasising the implications of decision-making like you have done is most certainly a step in the right direction. Consolidating the inputs of 40 HR directors, managers and other specialists, the South African Board for People Practices drafted an opinion paper on the HR implications of King III - some of the ideas included there, will most certainly ensure that HR is not excluded from decision-making. See www.sabpp.co.za (Human Resource Research Initiative). Best wishes!

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Morne Mostert on March 2, 2010 at 10:53am

Hi Sean

I don't know your business or your HR department, but there is no real need for HR to be involved in decision-making. Who can blame business for feeling this way? The fact that the business made mistakes in the past, is not evidence that HR's presence would have avoided these mistakes. The war for talent is over, as foreign skilled staff are flooding back into the country, and most local businesses are downsizing. Business may pick up again, but for now, companies are trying to recover recent losses through short-term gains. Staff no longer have loyalty and will jump to the highest bidder. Recruitment agencies manage most selection processes anyway, and scarce skills can be retained with a salary increase. Performance Management processes designed by HR are often overly cumbersome, and viewed by managers as an admin exercise, with little impact on on actual performance. Training departments adhere to all SAQA requirements, but often fail to prove ROI on training spend. Wellness departments run HIV information workshops, but all this information is available in national government campaigns anyway. So what exactly is HR offering that entitles them to a seat at the executive table?

The main problem is that HR often thinks like HR, not like business. In my HR consulting experience, a systemic insight into business realities is the single most powerful tool towards credibility. With such insight, HR won't have to insist, they'll be invited.

Regards

Dr Morne Mostert
Director of Leadership
Leadership Options
morne@leadershipoptions.co.za
082 855 7328

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Permalink Reply by Malcolm A Birkin on March 4, 2010 at 1:16pm

Hi Sean
You received numerous responses, but none have truly grasped the nettle! Convincing top management to take the first steps in making the HR Department strategic is not easy and there is no ‘quick-fix’ route. But there are three vital keys to unlocking the RC door. If you can get these across strongly enough they will listen, if they do not then it is C.V. update time!!
1. Making HR Strategic is not an option it is simply a level of overall company development. Companies that have not made HR strategic have a low level of development and cannot move to a higher level because their self-imposed ceiling prevents this. It is obvious that the higher the level of development within the company the better potential and opportunities it has to develop its business in the market place. So not having SHR in place will limit both development and growth.
2. Without SHR the company will be unable to achieve the many bottom (and top) line advantages that can be achieved when HR becomes effectively strategic. There are at least fifty ways in which SHR can add dramatic value, not only directly through SHR itself but by being able to add other value-adding operations that can develop only within its culture.
These cover an incredibly wide field from dramatically improved operational performance to higher levels of customer retention that alone can double the size of the company.
3. Without SHR and the ancillary aspects it engenders, it is not possible to achieve the only sustainable competitive advantage we have, high performance management achieved through above average people operating above average levels.

In short SHR makes good business sense.
Sincerely
Malcolm A Birkin (author of Building the Integrated Company), consult1@lantic.net, www.executive-training.co.za
P.S
The responses you received varied considerably and many were contradictory. This reflects that SA companies seeking to achieve SHR are very much in the learning stage. This is unlike global companies that have developed SHR over the past forty years and understand what is effective and what is not. What is vital is not what anyone “thinks” but what has been effectively proven over very many years of development, across a wide spectrum of sectors, irrespective of size or country of location.

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Permalink Reply by Sean Bowes on March 4, 2010 at 2:07pm

Hi Malcolm
Thanks for your reply, it is insightful. I will be reading "Building the Integrated Company".
Regards
Sean

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Permalink Reply by Malcolm A Birkin on March 5, 2010 at 9:25am

Hi Sean
Thanks, but reading my book, "Building the Integrated Company " will not give you adequate detail relating to your needs. I consult and present in-house programmes directly related to your needs.
Sincerely
Malcolm

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Permalink Reply by Paul J Whitehouse on March 10, 2010 at 7:30am

I would agree with Karin's approach, Lunga mentions that HR is the heart of an organisation, I think she is correct, however, the heart is not the brain where decision are made, HR is a support environment, not the pivot point, in many corporations, paricularly the smaller ones, it is "grudge purchase", check out some of the work of Clare Graves - Spiral Dynamics, it explains human behaviours in such a pragmatic way. A business is there to make money, and demands entrepreneurial thinking, HR brings the human aspect, managing these very different behaviours is the answer, HR must talk Business language, where HR must be seen to value adding. HR needs to "Sell" the fact that HR can bring a different essential view to decision thinking. Go well.

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Permalink Reply by Cecile van Rooyen on April 14, 2010 at 12:42pm

I am not in HR, but regularly hear the frustration from our HR management regarding this issue especially when it comes to the EE-requirements/plan for the college. The plan and what actually happens do not always speak to each other

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