Is your HR department an enabler?

For the past ten years or so, we have seen great challenges, spanning from skills drainage, EE and B-BBEE, and the talk of HR partnering with business. The latter has become a bone of contention and requires clear discussions that do not beat around the bush.

Points of departure:

1. If HR is or is supposed to be a business partner, how does this happen?
   

2. At what stage and level is this driven, and informed by what?
   

3. Where are those discussions?
   

The fact is that HR, over the years, has been seen, positioned and functions as a clerical function. We have seen people who seem to have people skills assuming high ranking HR positions because businesses / corporates have always perceived and treated HR as a clerical and people-focused function; a department that processes applications, deals with employees who have personal problems and is called on to fire people for non-performance. Have we seen HR practioners pushing forward anything to the contrary? A resounding no is heard!

Capability versus function - which one comes first and who enables who, and at what stage do we place one before the other?

If the function is positioned and perceived to be that of moving paper from one place to another, or just signing a document, then everyone can do that (no capability required). Just show them how it's done, but if the function requires capability (in the true sense), the conversations are of a different form.

Helping business reach its strategic objectives

If we are to have HR as a true business partner, conversations with business shouldn't be about head count, performance and absenteeism etc, we should and must have business conversations that enable a close relationship with business to help it reach its strategic objectives. This will require the HR fraternity to take a closer look and re-evaluate the attributes and competencies required for the industry.

We cannot keep on having HR positioned and seen as a clerical function or being referred to as a support function; whenever business wants to cut costs, they look at 'support' functions. HR cannot be a support function, it is a business enabler.

The biggest challenge in this instance is: how do HR practioners behave and position themselves eg. if you are busy doing HR transformation, but are not engaging with each department, the anticipated good strategic results will not come your way effectively. A functional strategy is not isolated to the group strategy, and HR should be at the forefront playing a pivotal role in guiding business accordingly.

It is, after all, not a support function, but a business enabler!