All of the HR people I know are busy, really busy. Years of resource and funding pressure has meant that ‘doing more with less’ year-on-year has been a continual motto for most HR functions. Of course, HR has not been alone in this but the function’s reaction to it has been relatively unique, perhaps due to the responsibility that HR has for keeping the rest of the organisation properly oiled.
The reaction has largely been to backburner or decreased focus on the development of the HR function itself.
Now, you would be forgiven for thinking that this was all due to the under-funding of HR development budgets: according to Gartner 2024 research, businesses on average invested only 0.74% of turnover into their people functions compared with twice that for finance, and 10 times that for sales.
Read more: The state of the HR profession in 2024
However, the other key blocker is a simple one: HR professionals tend to feel (and frequently tell me) that they simply don’t have time for their own development.
As a provider of HR solutions at Henley, the reality is that it gets harder and harder to engage HR functions in a discussion, not of the wider business’ capability development but of their own.
Many providers of HR learning report that that it is not unusual for up to half of HR professionals who sign up for development to actually not participate in it when push comes to shove, usually citing the need to attend a meeting, leave halfway through or simply having “too much on today” to make space for it. Dates for upskilling events are continually changed and re-arranged, or pushed into next year.
What are the implications for HR and the wider business?
Given the mandate and funding, HR has to step up and deliver in this more future-oriented space, working on its own mindset around development.
Read more: The new path to high-level HR
In particular, this development needs to be focused on where HR can add most long-term value to its business: talent management, strategic workforce planning, new talent sourcing strategies, data insight and the strategic elements of HR business partnering. If HR professionals are unable to do this, then the function will be seen as a transactional one and those in it as 'doers'. This in turn will fuel increased operational workload.
As for the wider implications, the business will fail to benefit from HR’s expertise and forward-looking strategies on the capability needed to underpin strategy, remaining dependent upon reactive activities and failing to get a hold on its greatest asset and cost: its people.
Are HR professionals much busier than those in other functions, or is something else going on here?
Let’s look at senior leaders in general: general managers, managing directors and P&L owners at senior levels are a pretty busy population. Do we see the same issue?
I’d be lying if I said that institutions like Henley Business School didn’t see it, but we don’t see this issue to anywhere near the same degree. Leaders are still keen to attend leadership programmes and invest in their own development it seems, despite their very sizeable responsibilities.
Read more: Moving on up: Where next on the HR career ladder?
It feels like we in HR are struggling with justifying time to develop ourselves or somehow worrying that the operational sky will fall in were we to take a day or two a year to focus on ourselves or enhance our capability as a team or cadre.
Really though, like most things in business, it’s simply a matter of choices and implications. Nothing is for free, but what we do know is that teams or functions who don’t find the time to step back today and spend even a little time preparing for the future, simply end up increasing their operational workload tomorrow – a cycle which has no happy ending.
The cobbler’s children have no shoes
A business-level shift in mindset from cost management toward the potential of HR to enable value creation must happen. This must translate into better funding at some stage.
However, at the same time, HR must step purposefully into any space created or make space itself with the funding it has.
It is a false economy to de-prioritise our own development due to a belief that we are supporting our business and our own brand best by doing everything that is thrown at us. We are not. 'Busy-ness is not the same as busi-ness'.
There will always be something which challenges the time we want to spend on development, so we have to make choices that balance success today with success tomorrow. If we are asking our businesses to invest more in us, then we must have the same attitude ourselves, and break the moniker of 'cobbler’s children'.
By Nick Kemsley, professor, Centre for HR and Organisational Capability, Henley Business School
