If You Build It, They Will Come
Most of us know that famous phrase uttered by the voice in the corn field in the movie Field of Dreams. Of course, it referred to building a ball field so that long-gone ball players could come back and play the game again.
In today’s context, I’d like to talk about building the right HR infrastructure in our organizations designed to do two things: attract the right people to our organization, and, more importantly, attract the attention of our executive team so they recognize that HR holds a special place in the organization.
HR is viewed by most corporate executives as simply the compliance police, the party planners, or the rock in the road. I can say this because I’ve interviewed many CEOs and regularly hear, with few exceptions, stories on that theme.
This saddens me because if we can build the right HR infrastructure, those same executives would learn to never make a move without consulting their HR business partner. What stands between a solid HR function and one simply focused on compliance and party planning is the level of strategic vision the HR person brings to the table.
Business owners and executives today are required on a nearly daily basis to be thinking and planning ahead about how to meet their corporate strategy. Oftentimes, HR is clearly a part of that corporate strategy, but HR doesn’t have its own strategy to incorporate.
We have to build out that HR strategy and, in order to do so, we have to have the right processes and information that allow us to operate efficiently and tactically to solve our business’ most pressing problems.
In fact, just today I had lunch with someone who is a salesperson for an HR-based tech solution who was lamenting the fact that when he can get to the business owners, his product practically sells itself. However when he has to go through HR, HR is more worried that his product will take their jobs away from them because they won’t have to own as much administrative work anymore.
If this is what we’re building from an HR perspective, our company will not be able to meet the needs of tomorrow’s workforce, nor will we be able to compete in tomorrow’s business world.
The first thing Ray, the farmer in Field of Dreams, had to do in the movie was plow his field under. People ridiculed him because the crop was bringing in money, but he knew he had to do it in order to make room for the ball field.
If we build it, they will come. What do we as executives need to plow under to make room for something bigger and better in our current HR infrastructure?
Discover some key questions to ask yourself here.