"Leaders at any level of a company must cherish and commit to winning. But wanting to win is not enough: Leaders must set a path that makes it happen. A firm's path to winning must increasingly go beyond mastering balance sheets, creating new manufacturing processes, and forming customer relationships; it must build that change, learn, move, and act faster than those of its competitors. To make the best use of these organizational capabilities, executives must see their human resource practices as source of competitive advantage...The successful leaders of the future must be able to create organizational capabilities. They must be able to identify the capabilities critical to business success and to design and deliver human resource management practices that can create those capabilities. To create value and deliver results, the leaders of the future must become human resource champions...So what do these competitive challenges mean for the continuing evolution of HR? On the one hand, HR refers to the organizational systems and processes within a firm that govern how work is done...On the other hand, HR refers to the HR function or department. The new competitive realities suggest a new agenda for HR, an agenda focused on championing competitiveness. As champions of competitiveness, HR professionals must focus more on the deliverables of their work than on doing their work better. They must articulate their role in terms of value created. They must create mechanisms to deliver HR so that business results quickly follow. They must learn to measure results in terms of business competitiveness rather than employee comfort and to lead cultural transformation rather than to consolidate, reengineer, or downsize when a company needs to turn around. To achieve these goals, HR must recognize and correct its past" (pp.16-17).
In this context, in Chapter 1, Dave Ulrich outlines old myths and new realities of HR as following:
I- Old Myths:
1. People go into HR because they like people.
2. Anyone can do HR.
3. HR deals with the soft side of a business and is therefore not accountable.
4. HR focuses on costs, which must be controlled.
5. HR's job is to be policy police and the health-and-happiness patrol.
6. HR is full of fads.
7. HR is staffed by nice people.
8. HR is HR's job.
II- New Realities:
1. HR departments are not designed to provide corporate therapy or as social or health-and-happiness retreats. HR professionals must create the practices that make employees more competitive, not more comfortable.
2. HR activities are based on theory and research. HR professionals must master both theory and practice.
3. The impact of HR practices on business results can and must be measured. HR professionals must learn how to translate their work into financial performance.
4. HR practices must create value by increasing the intellectual capital within the firm. HR professionals must add value, not reduce costs.
5. The HR function does not own compliance-managers do. HR practices do not exist to make employees happy but to help them become committed. HR professionals must help managers commit employees and administer policies.
6. HR practices have evolved over time. HR professionals must see their current work as part of an evolutionary chain and explain their work with less jargon and more authority.
7. At times, HR practices should force vigorous debates. HR professionals should be confrontative and challenging as well as supportive.
8. HR work is as important to line managers as are finance, strategy, and other business domains. HR professionals should join with managers in championing HR issues.
Finally, he writes that "the HR function traditionally has spent more time professing than being professional. The HR function has been plauged by myths that keep it from being professional. Regardless of whether these myths originate with HR people or with line managers, it is time they were overcome. It is time to talk less and do more; time to add value, not write value statements; time to build competitive, not comfortable, organizations; time to be proactive, not reactive. It is time to perform, not preach."
Strongly recommended.
