Not my dad’s “personnel” department

I once asked my Dad if he knew what I did for a living and he told me… “uh, you’re in the personnel department right?” It dawned on me that during my dad’s 30 year career with one company, he had formed the opinion that HR was an administrative department there to arrange his schedule, ensure his vacation days were allotted and taken properly, pay him on time and help with administrative paperwork. So when I told him what I really do and gave him my opinion of the new definition of HR and how predictive analytics and robust people strategies help inform and drive business strategies and outcomes, his perception of HR changed.

So what is your definition of HR? On the web you will find definitions such as: The personnel of a business or organization, or the department of a business or organization that deals with the hiring, administration, and training of personnel. SNOOZE. Boring… and more importantly, so untrue. If we were analogous to an Instagram post, we’d be a picture with the happiest employees, doing awesome stuff with amazing productivity. The caption would read: “#Squad goals” or “#Everything”.

In this day and age, HR is the place where talent lives, breathes and gives life to amazing business results. When we think about all the ways that great HR teams contribute to a company by partnering with literally every leader (CEO on down) and team in the company to ensure a diverse pool of Talent is attracted, on-boarded, developed and retained (while also staying compliant), the opportunities are endless.

 But the tired definition still exists out there. So, what do we do about the outdated definition of HR if we don’t like it? We start systematically breaking it down. To this end, this Friday, we will host the LinkedIn Festival: A Non-Technical Hackathon, a free event where Interns from across the bay area will be focused on coming up with new ideas and strategies within the HR realm. Attracting, developing, and retaining top talent is the only way for companies to create and maintain a competitive advantage in this new age of innovation.

We’re not striving to “fix” anything because we already have quite an amazing HR organization. We do hope to keep pushing the needle and that this event will be an “aha moment” for interns of all backgrounds – business, psychology, English literature, design, engineering, etc. – to realize the huge impact that they can make by working in the field of HR. We will unleash the power of collective thought and challenge just like technical teams have been doing for a really long time. Isn’t it time for the driving force behind a company’s talent to join the game in order to help revolutionize the definition of HR? We’re hoping our first ever HR Hackathon, The LinkedIn Festival, helps propel us down that path. For more information on this event, visit: https://hackday.linkedin.com/hr