Talent Management - September 2008 - (Page 22)

recruitment & retention assessment & evaluation compensation & beneﬁts performance management learning & development succession planning [assessment & evaluation] by Edward E. Lawler III Reinventing HR HR is not a strategic, businessoriented function in many organizations. Instead, the department likely serves to execute numerous administrative functions. These functions are necessary, but talent managers are missing the chance to contribute to organizational success on a grander scale. O ne would think the HR department would be a key player in most organizations: gathering and disseminating information about talent, helping to develop and implement strategy and developing practices and systems that motivate individual employees to ever-higher levels of performance. This is not the case. Too often, the HR department essentially is an administrative function, handling payroll, beneﬁts processing and formal training programs. Even HR departments that conduct regular employee attitude surveys and do talent assessments frequently have limited connections to the development and implementation of their organizations’ business strategies. As a result, an enormous opportunity exists for the leaders of HR functions to enhance their departments’ roles. This is especially true in human capital (HC)centric organizations whose strategies require that talent provides a competitive advantage. In these organizations, the need exists for a function that makes it a priority to develop and integrate all the elements of organizing and managing talent into a coordinated approach that ﬁts the business strategy. HC-centric organizations have no choice: Someone must take the responsibility for determining how talent is organized and managed. Three approaches are possible: • The existing HR function can transform itself and become the go-to unit for human capital issues. • The company’s leaders can replace the existing HR staff with individuals who are up to the challenge and make the new HR department the go-to unit. • HR’s administrative tasks can be outsourced, or with the help of information technology, done by a reduced HR staff. In some HC-centric organizations, HR is not and never has been a major player when it comes to talent management and organizational effectiveness. For example, in universities and law ﬁrms, when it comes to key human capital issues, the line managers simply do not involve HR beyond basic administration. Line managers recruit, select, train, develop and organize the professional staff. An approach that gives human capital responsibility to line management has some real strengths. However, it can make unreasonable demands on the operating managers’ time. And this group usually fails to incorporate the factand research-based human capital knowledge that can be brought to decisions involving human capital when an effective human resource management function exists. 22 September 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - September 2008

Talent Management - September 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance: Stop Wasting Money on Training Leading Edge: No Whining, No Excuses Learning Connections: Do You Get It? The Untapped Resource Reinventing HR Doing Compensation Right: The Winning Spread Managing Performance in the Knowledge and Innovation Worker Age Stop-The-Clock Time Management Preparing for the Future in the Public Sector SAS: Connecting People, Process and Products Talent Transformation at Textron The Price of Finding the Right Gen Y Candidate Advertiser's Index Editorial Resources Full Potential: Do What You Love, Love What You Do

Talent Management - September 2008

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