Only 5% of staff rate the role of HR expertise as important for business survival
David Woods, 10 August 2009
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2 comment's on this article.Only one in 20 employees recognise the role of HR expertise in business survival.
According to a poll from the European Leadership Programme (ELP), 27% of staff see HR as the least important skill for a CEO to help lead their organisation out of the economic downturn but 42% think their CEO needs more HR help from senior management.
Ashley Ward, founder of ELP, said: "Organisations need to keep investing in HR. Afterall employees are a company's number one asset. Your team may not recognise the role HR plays within the company every day but they do realise when it is lacking.
"As a result any cost-cutting should be definitive and swift. There must be frequent communication to employees which puts a hard stop to any speculation about continual drip-feed redundancies. Uncertainty is a recipe for despondency and failure."
The survey shows 32% employees think financial aptitude is the most important skill needed for business survival and 73% are confident their CEO has this in hand.
A third of respondents are confident their CEO has the right skill-set to lead their organisation out of recession unscathed but 45% are not confident the right changes to the business have been made.
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barry watson - 10 August 2009
In my humble experience the big problem with most HR departments is that they exist in a little box and then spend to much time complaining about why managers havent done this or done that. They have generally little or no experience of working 'on the line' themselves so are not in a good position to make valued contributions to company strategy. I recently worked interim in one HR department where not one single person of 10 HR staff had actually spent any time with shop floor managment and got out of the office to do so. Some manangers were very surpoised when I turned up on their doorsteps telling them I would like to know about their function and what I needed to do to help from an HR perspective and anything else I could do.So its no wonder they suffer from such a low image and having hot line personnel advisors who never actually see nyone just makes a complete nonsense of the whole function.My sincere advise to HR professional is get out of your chair,away from your PC,s,get out of the office and go and see people more.
Jan Sangster - 11 August 2009
Hi Barry,
I do endorse your thoughts on this. I work as HR & Practice Manager in a large veterinary business and one of the first things I did on taking up my role was to spend a day working with one of our kennel assistants. I certainly appreciated life at the foront line after having cleaned out inpatient kennels and cat litter trays. It also broke the ice and allowed staff to see me as a person who is not afraid to roll up their sleeves and muck in ( if you will pardon the BLOCKED EXPRESSION and find out about the sharp end of the business. They were also able to see me as a member of the team and approachable. I recommend this strategy to all managers.
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