Business-focused HR

”We have no idea what HR actually does, and absolutely no idea what they can do for us”  are comments we hear again and again from line managers, while the HR Department tell us, ”We are not allowed anywhere near the production line, they keep us at arm’s length.”

As external advisers, all too often we notice that there is a yawning gap between the HR department and the production line. This gap or poor contact between ”the human and the business”, means that expertise and resources are not utilised as they should be, and this has a negative impact on efficiency and business performance. 

In our view, this gap is due to a mutual lack of understanding and knowledge of current needs and expectations between the production line and the HR Department.

HR has its own ideas and aspirations for how it can help the organisation’s managers and workforce, and the business/production side has its own view of what it would like the HR department to do. 

When these two visions do not coincide, friction arises and misunderstandings develop, and these are seriously damaging to operations – especially in personnel-based and knowledge-intensive organisations. To put it bluntly, people are talking at cross purposes. 

The solution, we believe, is to have much closer and clearer links between the production/business side and HR. The HR Department must function more as a business/activity  partner to the operational parts of the company/organisation. 

Being a ”business partner” and also an internal consultant means

• being fully involved in strategic and operational activities
• providing support and acting as a discussion partner for the production line

and, in turn, this means that the HR Department must

-        understand the business and the significance of the business

-        be visible, proactive and initiate contact – ”…to be there first”

We call this Business-focused HR. Impact acts as a bridge and discussion partner for the organisation in creating and developing precisely the business and operations-based link between the production/business side and the HR department.

Our position is that;

The needs of the business are the HR Department’s job description