Canadian HR Strategy

14/CANADIAN HR STRATEGY ULRICH ON HR When it comes to the top challenges for HR, it's really about the challenges facing the business, according to David Ulrich, professor of business and director of the hu- man resource executive program at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. HR "is" the business by enabling it to deliver value to key stakeholders, he said. "Top HR professionals focus their interactions with business leaders on ways to help the business win. This might be focusing on growth through innovation, geographic expansion or customer share. It might focus on increasing the market value of the rm through pro tability and intangibles. It might focus on community reputation and social responsibility. When HR has a full grasp of these business imperatives, they can then bring unique insights around talent, leadership and capability (culture) to help deliver them." To respond to these business imperatives, HR can make sure the organization has the right talent, leadership and organization, said Ulrich, who is also a partner at the consulting rm RBL Group. Or a business might focus on increasing the market value of the rm through pro tability and intangibles. "In these cases, HR can show investors the market value of leadership," he said. "Or a business might focus on community reputation and social responsibility which get implemented through talent, leadership and organization choices." The C-suite wants HR insights that deliver business results, said Ulrich. "The information should not start with HR analytics or data, but with (a) clear understanding of business challenges and how HR can respond to them." "For example, if a company is trying to grow through increased customer share, HR should provide data about talent (who to hire and promote, how to train, how to pay), leadership (where should leaders spend time, what competencies should they demon- strate) and organization (how do you build a culture, invest in processes and design HR practices) that will drive customer share. HR lays out the choices in these areas, then they provide speci c information about how the choices will lead to results." So, is HR up for the task? "As a profession, we have little option. If the 60 per cent (of HR leaders commited to creating outside-in value) do not respond to these great opportunities, they will be left behind. Business leaders can not afford haphazard HR success." John Boudreau PHOTO: MARIO ANZUONI (REUTERS) ally more than privacy… this kind of thing starts to get creepy or freaky." It's quite feasible now to approach an employee and tell her the company's algorithms have been looking at her behaviour and other data and they alerted the company she may be think- ing of leaving — even though she may not even know that her- self. Furthermore, the algorithms can come up with a package that should entice the employee to stay. "That's all kind of good news in the sense of being more pre- cise and caring for employees, but everybody who hears that story says, 'Huh, I might feel kind of funny if my employer came to me, and wonder how much they're watching me and what they're watching,'" said Boudreau. There is a cultural issue behind this approach but leaders are going to need to turn to some profession — hopefully HR — and say, "What is the balance here and what evidence do we have about that and where do we need to draw the line and what are the pluses and minuses?'" he said. "Whereas, today, I think, there's in some ways a race to the next most elegant use of the data." Google is a good example of a company using analytics and this approach has led many people to be more comfortable with their data being available and analyzed, said Boudreau. "Perhaps as the younger generations begin to come into the workforce, they'll be so accustomed to their data being ob- served and analyzed that they'll be quite ready to have the or- ganization do this for them." THE CHANGING BUSINESS CASE FOR WELLNESS When it comes to wellness, many CEOs and CFOs say ini- tiatives in this area are helping to reduce costly items such as health-care costs, accidents and turnover. "That's very observable, it's very exciting — it has very, very large cost effects for organizations," he said. But as a further bonus, many CFOs are starting to say well- ness programs focused on the physical and emotional also make for better workers generally. Some are even suggesting com- panies are under-investing in wellness because the only return that can be measured is a very large-scale change in health-care will be done by employees." BIG DATA, BIG ADVANTAGE? Another drift to watch for is around big data, said Boudreau, with virtually every CEO "clamouring" for HR to do more with data, to deliver more evidence-based or numerically based in- sights and decisions. Most business leaders are aware they can gather a great deal of data on potential applicants by looking at the social media scene, such as LinkedIn, and using algorithms to trace employ- ees or even predict whether they may be likely to leave. But that's where it can get kind of strange, he said. "What's interesting is, around the corner, you're starting to see glimmers of signifi cant issues such as privacy. But it's actu-

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