HR plays its part (strategy)

Citation

(2009), "HR plays its part (strategy)", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 17 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2009.04417aad.009

HR plays its part (strategy)

Article Type: Abstracts From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 17, Issue 1

Bentley R. Personnel Today (UK), 1 July 2008, Start page: 19, No. of pages: 3

Purpose – Discusses how HR can ensure that all company employees understand the importance of its role within an organization. Design/methodology/approach – Notes that HR has faced a great deal of criticism, for example a Financial Times columnist stating that HR is a “necessary evil” and a survey of 1,150 chief executives showing that the HR function was “at a low ebb” with “little evidence“ of increased influence in the boardroom. Adds that unlike sales or IT, whose results can be measured directly, return on HR investment is much harder to calculate. Findings – Recommends an evidence-based approach to HR, with strategies formulated to collect data both at the start of an initiative in order to create a baseline, and on an on-going basis in order to identify changes. Comments that it is important to ascertain early on how employee performance will be affected by the data. Mentions the Royal Bank of Scotland, which has information on leadership skills going back to 2000, analyses it by group, division or department and assesses how much the skills are worth in terms of sales and customer satisfaction. Provides a number of very short case studies of companies making use of HR-related data, for example Securitas which gathered data on individual employees’ performance on callout response times and analysed it to identify ways individuals could improve. Originality/value – Highlights the importance of an evidence-based approach to working in HR. ISSN: 0959-5848 Reference: 37AR513

Keywords: Human resource management, Strategy, Return on investment, Data analysis, Information research, Employee communications