HR BUSINESS SUPPORT: KNOWING ENOUGH TO BE ADEQUATELY RESOURCEFUL

The CEO said. “I believe we are pretty much done with the general issues of the day. Have yourself a nice week ahead” This is often how he ended the weekly meetings. The Head of HR seemed to have been walking out of the door as the meeting ended. They were dormant for a significant part of the meeting – especially because nothing was expected to change in the HR Dashboard. But this was the beginning of another meeting that had the CEO, Head of Operations, Commercial Manager and Supply Chain Manager. Evidently Head of HR was not needed. The Head of Finance was asked if he could spare 20 minutes to attend this second meeting.

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Why was the Head of HR not required in the real business meeting? Is the practice of HR required in business management? Does the Head of HR need to know much about business?

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What does the Head of HR need to know about business to be able to know how to support the business? Good question!

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Strategic Knowledge – products strengths; contributory percentages, emerging trends, points to success in the future; SWOTs analysis, key drivers of the business strategy, strategic role of HR and the roadmap to the target future of the company….

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How the business works – the processes, the products; the target client; buying habits; what works; past successes; market share; global trends; skills requirements (winner profiles) …. these are some of the basics that makes the Head of HR belong to the business. Can the Head of HR be able to take a group of knowledgeable college students on a tour of the company and explain what the company is about without missing any details or being questioned on the basis of knowledge credibility?

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Business Topography and Metrics – plant/organisation capacity, turnover, throughput per employee, departmental cost in proportions (%); average employee turnover, market share, competitor insights, product range and pricing, sales to cost ratios, cost proportions, staff cost to revenue ratios (optimum vs actual); cost breakdown.

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With such level of awareness, the Head of HR is able to; know what percentage of business growth is needed to fund the business cases they have made; negotiate the proportion of revenues that can be assigned to human capital improvements; establish and use info on proportionate contribution of human capital in terms of cost/revenue per department; proportionate contribution of shared services positions to the different business units……..

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These are the engagements that will make the presence of the Head of HR resourceful in real business discussions.

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The Head of HR in a bottling company had agreed with the CEO informed by the analysis done with the CFO that cost to HR will stand at 27% of the revenue. This means for every additional budget, the Head of HR had to give a business case of how the requested cost will be 27% of the additional revenue. With this agreed way of working, it only took a consultation between the Head of HR and Commercial Director to establish the feasibility of realising some revenues and HR budget projections were realistically achieved.

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This is an example of where HR gets resourcefully involved in business through metrics to the advantage of the necessary projections.?