8 Opportunities to Create your HR Future

The Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) published an informative report on The Future of the HR Profession in 2002. It began a discussion that continues today, HR professionals remain obsessed with protecting their future.

Management philosopher Peter F. Drucker is famous for saying “The best way to predict the future is to create it,” a paraphrase of something Lincoln wrote. Drucker also wrote, “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” And, that is the gist of the SHRM report. HR professionals remain unclear about their future. They forestall their future by spending too much time studying it instead of creating it.

8 Opportunities

SHRM reports the responses of eight major firms to the question: “What are the opportunities for forward-thinking professionals over the next few years?” Notice the quality of the question. It does not direct; rather, it poses opportunities that invite HR professionals to follow. The choice is yours to pursue or not.

1: HR professionals are invited to create a clearly articulated HR function and to realize the infrastructure necessary. You need to recruit, staff, and train to the anticipated operational needs. Executive management will not demand or design this opportunity on its own initiative.

2: Human Resources supplies labor and maintains compliance. It now has the chance to link human capital with corporate brand – making people the “critical differentiator” between competitors. When HR connects employee values with corporate values, employee satisfaction will drive customer satisfaction.

3: HR will outsource the administrative rungs executives would have climbed to the top. The challenge is to fill the time relieved with integrative thought and work. HR leadership will be recognized as inter-disciplinary, requiring advanced education and expertise in new areas, such as metrics, operations, and financial reporting. Studying and understanding people as talent assets and human capital will fund corporate strategy and success.

4: A best opportunity may reside in an outsourced environment. The fact that businesses will be outsourcing HR functions assumes the need for leadership within those organizations. Conversely, once functions have been outsourced, the originating business still needs leadership to integrate remaining needs and to design new applications.

5: Creating a future now requires you to develop or strengthen skill sets. You must automate administration, design metrics to align human capital with business needs, create a strategy for conflict resolution, and facilitate change. Success in meeting these challenges raises your profile and improves your broader business orientation.

6: Your Human Resources office must be in order. If it is not working well, you will not change anyone’s mind about your future. As long as human capital represents such a large slice of the corporation’s financial pie, HR must make its presence felt on compensation boards, management teams, and others who direct corporate revenue and expenditures. And, to do this, you need a deeper financial-decision making background.

7: The future needs new metrics. Executive management hungers for data that helps it strategize its “larger” issues. HR will explain why it is important to worry about why employees leave the business, what impact their engagement has on business success, and what employees value more than efficiency. HR professionals now need to get ahead of the curve by seeking the intelligence and tools to discover and present real content to executives.

8: The most succinct and summary suggestion is to become a business partner offering branded and strong advice like an assured outside consultant.

Twelve years after the SHRM report, Human Resources professionals defend their role and still fear for the future. In fact, numerous opportunities exist to create their own destiny, and – not incidentally – improve the future of the human interests they seek to advocate.