As late as the other day I got it confirmed again. A lot of Swedish HR people does have a dominating PA perspective (PA=personal administration; employee admin) on their function, meaning less business-orientation. Which I also believe is the reason why Swedish HR people complain that they do not get the right attention on C-level. If you are a Swedish reader you can also read an interesting post on Magnus Dalsvall´s blog about the different HR perspective n the Swedish debate http://hrsociety.blogg.se/2010/may/605-tva-vagar-for-hr-vilken-vag-tar-du.html#comment
If people are the most scarce and valuable resource (which I happen to believe) then it is crucial working long term and on a strategic level not playing to role of administration or service office. If you want the C-level people’s attention you need to act, not taking the seat in the back complaining about the ride. Grab the wheels instead, or at least act the map-reader.
To give a flavor my perception regarding strategic HR, I would say it is about:
- How do I maximize bottom-line impact from attracting, recruiting, retaining, developing and push forward the global talents
- How to we nourish a company culture empowering and enrolling the business strategies; E.g. languages, stories, symbols, rituals, and values. Getting all people on the boat
- Deploying a reward framework. Fairness and motivation.
- Building and strengthen the psychology contract within the organization
- Defining and developing the line of sight – what actions and values lead to what and why
- Career planning and careers paths linked to the future business objectives and need of resources
- Building transfer mechanisms for transferring skills, knowledge and know-how to structural capital making the operation scalable, efficient and less vulnerable
So, please with sugar on the top – stop complain that CEOs and other C-level peoples does not listen or show interest and start acting strategic aligning the most valuable resources with the business objects and vice versa.
