the HR leader to identify what these employees need and
how to influence their growth. These employees need to know
they’re doing great work and are supported to continue to
develop.
■■ C players: They don’t have the necessary skills and capabilities
for the role they’re in and do not show any promise of
developing the needed skills. They should be exited out of their
function – and possibly from the organization altogether. It’s
not enough to have two or three of the required skillsets for a
role.
Osle acknowledges that this isn’t an easy exercise.
“Identifying A, B and C players and having a specific plan to ad-dress
the talent management needs of these people is very difficult
for most HR organizations,” he said. “It’s easier for HR to counsel
the business than take their own advice.”
Leuchter advises HR leaders to dig deep to expose truths about
their talent pool.
“HR has a responsibility to the business to ensure the talent
they have at an operational level is the talent they need for the fu-ture,”
he said. “They need to look introspectively to be sure they
have the best team to drive performance for the organization.”
MOVING FROM REACTIVE MODE TO A STRATEGIC
APPROACH TO HR
According to Leuchter, the first step to becoming more proactive is
to stop thinking about HR as a function that supports a business
and to start thinking about it as a business in its own right. The
shift in perspective can be a game-changer.
“When you’re running a business, you’re thinking about com-petitive
advantage, running P&L and so on. You might view your
functions and services differently than if you think of yourself as
an organization with a budget that you use every year,” he said.
“When HR organizes themselves as a business that provides the
right service at the right cost at the right time – like any other
business driving a product or service – it will affect how they pro-vide
and how you charge for their services.”
Leuchter says that it requires a strong CHRO with the courage
and leadership to take this approach, but that organizations that
have changed the paradigm to view themselves that way often be-come
top performers.
THE ROLE DATA AND ANALYTICS PLAY IN THE
PURSUIT OF A WORLD-CLASS HR ORGANIZATION
One of the keys to being a great business partner is to have intelli-gence
at the ready, says Osle. While most HR organizations have
data at their fingertips, it’s what they do with it that determines
whether they can become a top performer.
“Business partners with the right skillsets can take that infor-mation
and derive insights and be informative to the operation or
business group,” said Osle. “But if you’re a world-class operation,
you’ll have individuals who can take that insight and make it intel-ligence
by being predictive.”
feature
Key highlights from The Hackett
Group study, The CHRO Agenda: An
Urgent Need to Close Large Gaps in
Talent and Technology Capabilities:
• Many HR organizations remain behind the curve in
addressing issues that are central to achieving the
most important enterprise goals. These include aligning
talent strategies to business needs, dealing with
critical talent and skill shortages and implementing
organizational change.
• While some crucial development areas are targeted
for major improvement in 2017, others – such as finding
solutions to critical skills shortages, retention of key staff
and strategy execution – will not receive the attention
they need.
• Most HR executives recognize the potential of digital
technology to transform enterprise and HR roles
and operating models, but only a minority think their
organization has the strategies and resources required
for successful execution.
Lightspring/Shutterstock.com
Continued on page 28
26 ❚ JUNE 2017 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL