Ultimate Performance: Measuring Human Resources at Work

The Problem

As data supporting the link between human capital and shareholder value has mounted, HR professionals have sought to use this as a way into their organizations’ senior leadership teams. But just because prominent HR talking heads espouse that HR deserves a seat at the leadership table doesn’t make it so. In spite of the data on their side, HR professionals have a poor track record meeting stakeholders’ expectations. No matter how illustrious the strategic thinking, unless the basic needs of the organization are satisfied, HR professionals will not be viewed as competent members of the organizational team.

The goal has been to improve HR’s recognition as strategically important at the C-level and become Business Partners, as HR academic and author David Ulrich has proposed. Thus HR’s strategy to date has been to minimize the traditional role of administrative, transactional, and resource-intensive processing via outsourcing and instead increase its profile as a business advisor. Each of us has been inundated with the HR “pyramids” used in every PowerPoint presentation at every HR conference. Business leaders expect more than presentations, but to date, the HR community has only been able to talk about what must be done. Our ability to execute this transformation has been slower than executives, shareholders, and, lest we forget, employees would like.