The most effective HR leader is a business leader

The 15th edition of the #TorontoHR series welcomed Denise Roy, VP of Human Resources for the award-winning IndustryBuilt software.

In her remarks to a standing-room-only group, Denise dispelled many of the myths of HR as bureaucratic paper pushers.

More importantly, she empowered attendees - and HR professionals in general - with tactical, practical measures to make HR more effective in 2017 and beyond.

Among the highlights of her presentation was a re-imagining of the HR Generalist role from "caterer to enabler." In Denise's view, because the generalist role is not specialized it can be perceived as providing low strategic value, get caught in the role of de facto office manager/company cheerleader and become a catch-all for administrative tasks.

Instead, as an enabler, Denise argued that HR has the opportunity to specialize their resources to focus on specific, strategic human resource areas that are critical to achieving the company's objectives.

The siren song, in my view however, was championing the HR leader to really become a business leader. This is something I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about and writing about as well.

Denise demonstrated that the most effective HR leaders understand their role in achieving and accelerating key strategic outcomes, by:

• Using business knowledge, coupled with HR expertise, to contribute to an effective strategic plan that maximizes people resources and capabilities
• Providing a cross-functional view, across the organization, measuring the ability of each department to achieve their goals
• Effectively forecasting the need for specific skills or labour capacity based on conditions
• Proactively finding and engaging the talent required to fill gaps (hire or train)
• Driving and managing change throughout the organization and engaging resources

In the last 10 years we’ve seen a tremendous shift in the role Human Resources plays within the enterprise. HR can transition from a largely tactical, administrative function to a more strategic role focused on creating value for the business by linking the expectations of executives with the day to day requirements of department managers. 

With this theme in mind, I also encourage you to register for our next event where we welcome Doxim Founder, President and CEO Chris Rasmussen who'll take you inside the corner office to show how that link is most effectively made.

Connect with me directly if you'd like a copy of Denise's slides.